Is fat CONTAGIOUS? Are the people you hang out with making you fat? Researchers say the answer to both these questions is “yes.” But if you’re fat, it doesn’t mean your love life is over, because fat people are attracted to each other.
New research reveals that may be caused by a VIRUS! Can we catch it from another fat person? Can be vaccinated against it? These are questions that everyone who struggles with their weight wants answered!
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Not everyone gets supersized on a fast food diet. Why do some people get fat while others don’t? Researchers are trying to figure out how our hormones and brains urge us to eat more than we should. It turns out that some people’s hormones may actually be signaling their brains to send messages like “Eat a lot now,” and “Go for the fat and sugar.”
The hormones leptin and insulin inhibit the development of obesity when consumption of fat and calories increases. Some people respond very well to these hormones and they don’t gain weight during bouts of overeating. But others are less responsive to leptin and insulin, which makes them more at risk to become obese.
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Fathers may be more important than mothers in determining whether a child becomes overweight or obese. And there is a critical age when many inner city children become overweight or obese: between the ages of 1 and 3 years old. If they can stay slim until then, they may not have to struggle with obesity later.
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Not everyone gets supersized on a high fat diet, and now reseachers are learning why. A new shows why some people can eat excessive amounts of food and not gain weight or develop type 2 diabetes, while others are more likely to develop obesity and this most common form of diabetes on any diet.
The study used two strains of mice with differing tendencies to gain weight and develop diabetes on a high-fat diet. Researchers C. Ronald Kahn says, “Although this study was done with mice, it points out new mechanisms that may underlie the ability of genetically different mice?and perhaps genetically different people?to not gain much weight on high caloric diets.”
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