Hidden Factors in Weight Gain

In case you missed it, a recent journal issue of the International Journal of Obesity — (I know, you never miss an issue, it's your favorite thing to read next to People)— reported on ten "novel" factors for explaining the collective expansion of America's waistline.

It was interesting, because it was the first time — that I know of — that a respected scientific journal has put together a lot of the factors that popular diet writers like Elson Haas and Ann Louise Gittleman have been talking about for a while — so called "hidden factors" in weight gain that go beyond the obvious.

For example: Sleep deprivation. I wrote on AOL ages ago that there was an easy weight loss technique that you could do in bed and took no effort. The article got more hits than almost any other I ever wrote. The "magic technique?" Sleep. Why? Lack of sleep (or non–restfulsleep) raises cortisol and reduces nightime secretion of both melatonin and human growth hormone. People who are tired all day also eat more — ever notice that? The hormonal environment caused by the stress of undersleeping is a prescription for disaster when it comes to weight gain.

The International Journal of Obesity also listed endocrine disruptors, a subject that's been relegated to the back rooms of nutritional conspiracy theories and never taken nearly as seriously as it needs to be. I first read about the syndrome in Lindsay Berkson's excellent book "Hormone Deception" and I've been talking about it ever since. Briefly, there's stuff in the environment — toxins, chemicals, breakdown components of plastics — that act in the body like hormones and basically mimic or intefere with the natural action of our body's hormones. Screw around with the endocrine system and all bets are off. Hormones direct weight gain — just like they direct zillions of other metabolic processes — and when the environment is filled with endocrine disruptors, it's like spreading Elmer's glue all over smoothly functioning machinery. The results aren't pretty. Take a look at the beach on Coney Island. Come to think of it, take a look at the people laying on the beach on Coney Island. Get my drift?

The Journal also mentioned medications. The PDR (Physican's Desk Reference) is filled with thousands of pages of drug descriptions, a good portion of which has to do with "side effects." Many of these have to do with weight, either directly or indirectly. Anyone who's had experience with Prednisone knows this first hand, but there are subtle ways medications can affect weight gain/loss indirectly as well, by adding to the burden on an already overtaxed liver which has to get rid of the stuff in the first place, all while doing triple duty as the body's premiere fat processing plant. Talk about multitasking.

So there you have it. The establishment is starting to "get" that it's more than just diet and exercise. That doesn't mean those twin pillars of health don't matter — they do.

They're just not the whole picture.