The epidemic of obesity keeps getting worse. What's a good holobiont supposed to do?

 

The obesity epidemic keeps expanding. The above are, I believe, the most recent data available for the US. The COVID-19 lockdowns and isolation measures are reported having made things even worse. This trend is simply horrendous: what the heck is happening to humankind? (Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist, I am just someone who is fascinated by data and trends. And, of course, we are all interested in our health! Here, I report some data I found, hoping you may find them useful. Don't take them as the last word on the subject. As always, before acting on things that affect your health, do your own search and use your judgement about what works for you.)

The obesity epidemics had a considerable boost by the lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic. Coupled with the opposite effect, that obesity is a risk factor for people who contract Covid, you have a remarkable disaster in the making. With several Western countries having percentages of obese people close to or higher than 50%, one wonders what's going to happen in the future. Why are the human holobionts in such a poor shape?

The story is complicated, and I don't pretend to say anything new. I just want to attract your attention to some recent studies that I think shed some light on the mechanism of human obesity (but even our fellow dog holobionts are suffering from obesity). 

First, the work by Raubenheimer and Simpson on the food preference of various animals, summarized in a recent book titled, "Eat like the Animals." (Mariner Books, 2021). Their discovery is easy to summarize: it seems that most living beings have a specific set point in their needs for the main nutrients. They seek for a specific balance among proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. In particular, they aim at a minimum intake of protein. If animals are fed an unbalanced diet, for instance, poor in protein, they will tend to eat more food until they reach the right level. Raubenheimer and Simpson call this the "protein leverage hypothesis:" 

"In a protein-poor but energy-rich food environment, humans will overeat carbs and fats to try to reach their protein target. However, when the only available diet is rich in protein, human will underconsume carbs and fats"

Since excess carbohydrates are stored in the body as fat, we can say that one of the causes of the obesity pandemic is that the human diet in Western countries is overstocked in carbohydrates. 

Here comes Robert Lustig and his book "Metabolical" (Yellow Kite 2021) where he minces no words on how this is not only true but also a profitable strategy for the food industry. They discovered long ago that if they put more and more carbohydrates (sugars) in the food they sell, then people will get fat, they will eat more, and that will increase their profits. Just like sick people are a boon for medical doctors, obese people are a boon for food producers. 

You don't believe that? Let me show you a picture I took a few days ago in an Italian supermarket:

There are four kinds of regular mayonnaise on sale, plus a fancy one with no eggs. Can you guess which is the only one that does not contain added carbohydrates? Let me tell you, it is the most expensive one among the regular ones. All the others contain sugar. Maybe it is not the same for all mayonnaise brands on the market, but I think it is significant. Food companies do add sugar everywhere, even when it is not called for by the traditional recipes. They deny that, but it is written on the list of the ingredients (I have pictures, if you don't believe me!)

Now, it may well be that there is much more to obesity than just carbohydrates, but I think that these results point at an important cause of the problem. There are data showing that what we are seeing may be a delayed effect of "peak sugar" that occurred around the year 2000. From then on, the amount of sugar consumed in the U.S. has been going slightly down. But it remains high. 

The beauty of this is that, if it is true, with obesity we don't have such a wicked problem as others, say, global warming. We know that to avoid global warming, we should stop burning hydrocarbons, but it is also true that we can't just stop: billions of people would die. But we could stop, or at least strongly reduce, the extra carbohydrates added to processed food, and we could do it today. Nobody would die, but the problem would be eased and many people would be healthier! But this is the way things are in the world: no problem can ever be solved when there is somebody making money if it remains unsolved. 

To make you happier, let me show you some data that tell us that a little excess weight (a little!) is not necessarily bad for your organism. Here are some data from Malcolm Kendrick's wonderful book "The Clot Thickens" (Columbus 2021). 

BMI stands for "Body Mass Index" and the overall lowest risk of death is for a BMI of 25-30 that's normally classified as "overweight" (if you want to know, I am at BMI=27). Being underweight is a larger risk than being obese! But obesity has many other problems, not least in terms of self-esteem. 

In the end, remember that you are a holobiont and that for hundreds of millions of years your holobiont ancestors never ate anything that was processed in an industrial plant. You are a fine-tuned machine that includes trillions of friendly viruses and bacteria living in your guts. They want a balanced diet of fats, protein, fiber, and not too much in terms of carbohydrates (but you need them, too!). Try to make them happy, and you'll be happier, too!

Invaded by Alien Creatures: They were not unfriendly, after all.

Four days flat in bed. Fever, cough, runny nose, pain in all joints. I can't remember having been  so sick for quite a while. And it wasn't even Covid! I tested four times, because everybody was telling me, "it has to be Covid."  But, no, all the tests were negative. If it doesn't quack like a duck, then probably it is not a duck.

I think there are moments when the elements of the holobiont that's your body get together to send you a message. A strong message that my own immune system and the creatures that had come inside my system were sending to me, together. It was, "Take it a little easier. No matter how bad things are in the world, there is just so much that you can do. So take a few days of rest. It is not a suggestion, it is an order." I obeyed, grateful. I am also grateful to the little critters, whatever they are, who helped my body to carry out a cleansing that was evidently needed.

Sometimes you think that you are a sort of ghost stuck inside your head - a sort of microprocessor that resides behind those two cameras you call 'eyes'. But you are much more than that: you are a body, a full body. Muscles, nerves, blood, a heart, lungs, gut, all the rest. You are a holobiont: many creatures living together. And there is no obvious boundary between what is "you" and what is "outside you." You continuously exchange information with the outside. You breathe, eat, drink information in the form of the genes of the creatures we call "germs," but which normally have no intention to harm you. It is just that your immune system must learn to recognize these creatures. It is a continuous exchange that makes your body able to thrive in a genetic "soup" that surrounds every one of us and of which we are all part. 

If you try to keep these creatures away using filters or disinfectants, you remain deaf and blind to that information. You are defenseless to the first batch of creatures which happen to be a little more aggressive than the usual. And, sometimes, you need to go through the readapting, relearning, and cleansing I went through. It is a little painful, but afterward you feel great, especially if you were wise enough to avoid taking medicines (although, I have to confess, I took a few aspirin pills!).  

In any case, we are all part of the great holobiont we call Gaia, the Goddess. May She be praised for Her wisdom and Her patience with those sons and daughters of Her, so silly and so unruly. Onward, fellow holobionts!

Holobiont Science: Stefania Consigliere on Bio-Anthropology

 

An image of the talk given today in Florence by Stefania Consigliere, who teaches at the University of Genova, Italy. A talk at a remarkably high level: an interdisciplinary romp on many facets of the modern crisis, touching individual health, the management of the pandemic, the cultural structure of our world, and how diet-based Chinese medicine is superior to our pill-based medicine. 

Note how the talk was given in the open, in a public garden, with all sorts of people attending. It would not have been possible to give it in a University: the bureaucratic rules would have prevented the general public from attending. And it is hard to see how a standard university department would have been able to stomach such a wide-ranging, heretic talk. It is sad to say that the Western universities have completely lost the role of keeper of knowledge and wisdom they once had. By now, they are completely self-referencing entities whose main purpose seems to turn smart people into idiots. 

What we did today is what I call "holobiont science." Science for human beings, with human beings, for the good of human beings. The people attending the talk were not scientists, they were a holobiont-like assemblage of varied people who wanted to learn something. And Stefania Consigliere did her best to transmit her knowledge to them. It is the same approach we took with a talk that Anastassia Makarieva gave in Florence a few months ago. No university, no bureaucracy, no permissions, no QR-codes. Just people getting together to learn. That's the definition I use for "social holobiont:" people collecting to do something together. 

I briefly intervened in the debate and I mentioned the concept of "holobiont" (Stefania had not used the term, but she had hinted at it using the concept of "symbionts"). And, you know? It turned out that several people in the audience knew what a holobiont is! Don't say that science does not progress!!