The media is alive today with advanced reports that the January issue of O magazine contains an interview with its namesake Oprah Winfrey in which she divulges that she has once again become obese. (here, here and here)

Apparently the queen of daytime TV (and my neighbor down the street) has ballooned up to 200 pounds.  And, if her statement on the cover of her magazine can be believed, she wonders how it happened. I’ve read a few of the articles, most of which quoted her from the advance copy of her January magazine.  As I read her quotes I realize that despite all her fame and wealth, she is basically just like any other middle-aged woman prone to obesity.  Let’s let her talk. Read more »

You think carbohydrates aren’t addictive?  You think it’s easy to give them up?  You don’t think it possible that people might prefer carbs to life?

Think again.

A story appeared in the online version of Time Magazine last year that I read when it came out, put aside to blog about later, then got sidetracked.  A reader sent me a link to it a few days ago, which brought it back to the front of my mind.

The article discusses a study being done in Germany using a carb-restricted diet to fight cancer.  In pre-WWII days, a German scientist, Otto Warburg, received a Nobel Prize for his work in sussing out the fact that cancer cells don’t generate energy the same way that normal cells do.  Cancer cells get their energy, not like normal cells, from the mitochondrial oxidation of fat, but from glycolysis, the breakdown of glucose withing the cytoplasm (the liquid part of the cell).  This different metabolism of cancer cells that sets them apart from normal cells is called the Warburg effect.  Warburg thought until his dying day that this difference is what causes cancer, and although it is true that people with elevated levels of insulin and glucose do develop more cancers, most scientists in the field don’t believe that the Warburg effect is the driving force behind the development of cancer.

But it stands to reason that it can be used to treat cancer that is already growing.  Since cancers can’t really get nourishment from anything but glucose, it stands to reason that cutting off this supply would, at the very least, slow down tumor growth, especially in aggressive, fast-growing cancers requiring a lot of glucose to fuel their rapid growth.

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Hodgson Mill, near Gainesville, MO. Built in 1884 Photo by Hemant (click to enlarge)

Someone I know gave me a look at a book by a guy named Dr. Gregory Ellis, who is a Ph.D. body builder and an ex-pro footballer, and asked me to take a look at it. The book suffers from being self published and not having the helping hand of a professional editor. It is way overwritten and about three or four times as long as it needs to be (it’s about the size of the Little Rock, AR telephone directory) to make the case Dr. Ellis is trying to make.

Dr. Ellis, like my good friend from Down Under, is a firm believer in the calorie is a calorie is a calorie theory. In fact, he is such a firm believer that it seems to have reached the point of almost being a religion to him. His book contains 26 chapters, and starting with Chapter 3 (I don’t know why he didn’t start with Chapter 1, but he didn’t) and going all the way through the rest of the 26 chapters, he puts this statement at the top of the chapter page: Read more »

About a month ago I posted on a Swedish overfeeding study and how the results were misreported in the press. This study showed that increased carbohydrate intake can cause an increase in certain liver enzymes associated with the metabolic syndrome. Along with this liver enzyme data the authors reported on metabolic rate changes that are instructive in our quest to determine the existence (or lack thereof) of the metabolic advantage.

I would imagine that most people reading this blog have had problems with excess weight sometime in their pasts. Those of you who have struggled with overweight probably have little sympathy for those who have the opposite problem – that of inability to gain. Despite how easy it seems for those with weight problems to gain weight and especially to regain lost weight, it is extremely difficult for many people to gain weight almost irrespective of how much they try.

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