Obesity and Industrial Pollution?
Jul. 27th, 2021 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
Just yesterday I encountered and read a preprint of a research article that suggests that the environmental crisis of our time may have a dimension few people realize. The article is by Ethan and Sarah Ludwin-Peery, it's published by the Open Science Foundation, and you can download and read it here. The title? "A Contamination Theory of the Obesity Epidemic."The authors point out that obesity in the developed world follows patterns that make no sense in terms of any of the standard theories. It was relatively uncommon until quite recently -- ads like the one I've posted on the left, which you can find in many old magazines, make it clear that too little weight was as common as too much just three quarters of a century ago. The increase in average body weight doesn't correlate to increasing consumption of sugar, carbohydrates, or any of the other usual suspects, nor do studies support the usual theories about why it's prevalent.
There are also strange details about the distribution of obesity that can't be explained by any of the standard theories. Did you know, for example, that pet animals in the US have been becoming obese at roughly the same rate as human beings? Or that obesity inversely correlates with altitude? Check out a map of the United States showing obesity rates by county -- the paper gives this on p. 5 -- and you can see the mountain and upland regions clearly as regions of relative thinness. Look closely and you'll see that it's not just altitude. Obesity concentrates in river valleys, and the larger the watershed, the higher the obesity rate in the lower reaches of the river.
Fat doesn't flow downhill in continent-sized watersheds, and neither do sugar or carbohydrates -- but industrial pollution does.
That's the possibility that this paper proposes: that some common, persistent industrial pollutant which is present in groundwater has, as a side effect, weight gain in human and animal subjects. The Ludwin-Peerys have done a fine job of investigative epidemiology in their paper, and show that a link between obesity and industrial pollution is the one theory that accounts for the facts. If they're right, the habit of treating the biosphere as a dumpster for chemical wastes may have imposed a cost on society as a whole that nobody's yet taken into account. (Unless -- and whisper this -- the corporations in question have known about this all along, as they knew about the health consequences of tobacco smoking, and kept it secret...)
I expect this paper and the theory it presents to be deep-sixed if the corporate establishment can possibly do so, and denounced in the most shrill tones possible if that effort fails. That being the case, dear reader, you might consider downloading a copy, stashing it somewhere, and taking its ideas into account in your assessments of the future.
Which 'un?
Date: 2021-07-27 07:17 pm (UTC)Re: Which 'un?
Date: 2021-07-27 07:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 07:48 pm (UTC)I had pitched a research project on estrogen mimics, which of course are now ubiquitous in watersheds, and estrogen is fat soluble so really accumulates in a body. I'd put together a project justification for us to replicate some great research coming out of the US and western Europe to the best of my meagre ability, because the thing about some of these chemicals is that their effects (particularly in amphibians) are inverse to concentration. So, if you have a small amount, ppb, you'll get terrible health effects, frequently reproductive deformities. But ppm or thousandths, and the problems went away (of course, other problems with other chemicals in your contaminating effluent were then so high the problem could not be ignored) . Which meant that paradoxically, the solution to pollution of dilution to the point where concentratiions were below testing thresholds made things much worse. Under the rug.
My mentor was excited, but we had little lab capability to do the work; so he called these former Club guys up. They utterly demolished the idea. Many of their critiques he felt were not so much academic feedback as straight up ad hominem at me, and after some heated exchange, we dropped it. He was fuming about how irrational their reluctance seemed to be, and how unprofessional their treatment of an undergrad had been.
I haven't seen really anything about that research since, but it's not my field, so maybe it just did get debunked. Or.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 07:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 08:22 pm (UTC)I remember listening to a fasting expert talk once and he said that the body stores stuff in fat that it doesn't want to/can't deal with at the time, and that some times when people "can't shed" some bit of weight they might find that the body is resisting it due to the work that will be involved. He was talking about this because I guess during fasts people experience some uncomfortable symptoms (I remember he told a story about a person who was passing out something that smelled like a chemical he'd used in developing photographs decades earlier). It could possibly be related to what you are describing.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 08:26 pm (UTC)Re: Which 'un?
Date: 2021-07-27 08:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 08:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 08:29 pm (UTC)Re: Which 'un?
Date: 2021-07-27 08:33 pm (UTC)Breanna
(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 08:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 09:00 pm (UTC)The whole anti-biotic, preservatives, biocides in food is likely part of the problem.
(FYI eating a diet with fermented foods for just a few weeks can greatly increase the diversity of gut microbes. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/fermented-foods-can-add-depth-to-your-diet
https://phys.org/news/2011-01-microbes-gut-genes-obesity-inflammation.html)
If you are up for experimenting on yourself, try adding fermented foods to your diet for a couple of months and take notes on how you are feeling.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 09:18 pm (UTC)The theory also explains in part the stereotype of working-class people as fat, which I have seen with my own eyes is a reality. Not just consumption of foods that put on weight (and provide quick energy for tired bodies), but that there is more pollution in low-income neighborhoods. Which has also been documented and lamented over in the media but not corrected.
Scarlet Obnoxious Sloth
(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 09:24 pm (UTC)I've been aware of that phenomenon for years, but the connection I've seen is not between weight gain and industrial pollution as such, but between weight gain and climate change. As the climate warms up, people and animals gain weight, which would produce generally the same pattern you described, including less weight gain at higher altitudes, which are cooler. That's a connection that the powers that be would be less likely to suppress, as it fits with what they consider to be environmental threat number 1. The appeal then becomes "climate change is making you fat, so fight climate change and help reduce your weight!" I've also seen cause and effect reversed, with increased weight being implicated in contributing to climate change because of obese people exhaling more carbon dioxide. Then the exhortation becomes "lose weight to fight climate change!" As much as I support reducing both greenhouse gases and Americans' weight, seeing this makes me think that the relationship between weight and climate can be used to get people both coming and going!
Orthopedic issues in medium-sized and larger dogs
Date: 2021-07-27 09:38 pm (UTC)It happens
Date: 2021-07-27 09:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 09:43 pm (UTC)*See https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22387882/ for an example.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 10:09 pm (UTC)https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/obr.12481
From the summary:
"Because the toxicodynamics of POPs relate directly to the dynamics of adiposity, POPs might explain puzzling findings in obesity research. In two people exposed to the same amounts of environmental POPs, the one having more adipose tissue may be advantaged because POPs storage in adipose tissue can reduce burden on other critical organs. Therefore, adipose tissue can play a protective role against the POPs effects."
(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 10:12 pm (UTC)Interesting study. The diets of Americans and the relationship to processed foods also comes into the mix, as the cheaper-to-make/more-profit-to-be-had carb loaded products also started coming on in the 1980s, inline with the faster, on-the-go/no-time-to-cook lifestyles of Americans.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 10:41 pm (UTC)Now I see young women and men like her all the time, some barely able to walk due to their weight. While many can make the case for vegetable oils, lack of exercise and sugar heavy foods, the one thing that has been inexorably increasing has been pollution of every kind. One article I read links the problem to air pollution.
https://airqualitynews.com/2019/11/01/air-pollution-linked-to-obesity-in-young-adults/
I'm sure a search could turn up articles linking other kinds of pollution to this problem. We seem to be facing a perfect storm created by years of industrial garbage which doesn't break down easily and has been accumulating more and more. Now micro-fibers and plastics are joining this witch's brew. I just can't see this ending well.
JLfromNH/Jaundice Senescent Crab
(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 10:50 pm (UTC)The map is the truly intriguing part. I looked up the CDC reference where I couldn't find that specific map but others which also included diabetes in the color coding. Even if there are some flaws in the statistical methods that produced this maps (for a start I'd try shifting the color intervals and see what happens to the map, but there's a whole lot more that one could and probably should do) it will be hard to explain away that things become dramatically worse over time and that there seems to be a rather consistent altitude effect. I'd love to see such maps for other regions of the world...
They put a lot of good work into the paper and I'd have to put a lot more time and effort into understanding and background research to have an educated opinion. I'd dare to say, though, that they are rather careless with their conclusion "obesity is caused by contaminants". It's impossible that contaminants are the SOLE cause for obesity and they provide a lot of evidence for this in their own paper. Going further, I'd say the type of study they are doing is not capable of producing more than correlations. Anyhow, the correlations they observe make a strong case for future studies that could test for a causal relationship. But I think you are right in that this paper will most likely have very little impact. Having been a scientist(tm) myself for several years and having followed the "skeptic vs. believer"-scene for quite some time I see to many red flags. The topic, the conclusions, the authors, the language, some hasty conclusions mixed into all this - no, unfortunately this paper will most likely just be ignored by the mainstream.
For all those, who do not ignore it - the downside of studies like this is that they allow the careless reader to draw tentative conclusions that are only partially justified at best. They're talking about common sense in their paper which I value highly. My common sense and my own observations tell me that chronic fear, chronic anxiety, chronic frustration and chronic boredom are major sources for obesity and other health problems. Probably even more than eating junk food. Mental health issues probably don't correlate to altitude (but, who knows?) but at least these are screws anybody can turn if it need be, even if they have no control on the lithium levels in their tap water (although it should be possible to gather knowledge about the local concentration of at least a few contaminants (lithium should be fairly easy) and develop counter measures, if necessary).
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 11:03 pm (UTC)Another caveat: John Ioannidis estimates that a majority of "COVID deaths" (i.e. people who died from various causes after getting a positive PCR test) can ultimately be ascribed to obesity, and most of the rest to smoking.
This doesn't surprise me at all
Date: 2021-07-27 11:18 pm (UTC)God only knows what's in our drinking water because water treatment facilities barely scratch the surface.
Industrial pollution, medications dissolved in our urine that carries over, vitamins, every possible sort of compound.
I remember a 60 minutes (back when they did news) of some guy holding up a fluorescent tube in the air under a mega-powerline and watching it light up! Nobody cared.
None of the powers that be will care about this either.
Teresa from Hershey
(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 11:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-07-27 11:51 pm (UTC)