Super-Size Me In a Lab Setting
September 22, 2006 by Liz Lewis
Filed under Food and Drink, Prevention, Your Body
A Swedish scientist, Fredrik Nyström, inspired by Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me is attempting to recreate the experiment in a much more controlled setting. He got healthy students to be his guinea pigs and is measuring their progress. Some of the initial results are very surprising.
Nyström is puzzled about why Spurlock [his liver] had such an extreme reaction, musing that he could perhaps have had an undiagnosed problem with his liver or, he says, “Maybe his hardcore vegetarian girlfriend held him to a low-energy diet, making him incapable of coping with this kind of food.”
Interestingly, in the Swedish experiment, while the liver readings got steadily worse until the third week, they then took a turn for the better. The liver, it would seem, adapts. Cholesterol, meanwhile, was hardly affected.
And this is the most fascinating thing: if Nyström’s small group are representative, then it would seem that our bodies are more adaptable than we give them credit for. In other words, metabolism may play a much more important role in the problem of obesity than many people think. Indeed, Nyström claims that for some people, eating 10% more will lead to their metabolism increasing at the same level. The extra energy will be burned off as body heat during sleep. “If that was not the case we would all have to keep track of every last calorie,” he says. “And you have to realise that some overeaters consume such grotesque amounts that they would be even heavier – much heavier! – were it not for this safety mechanism.”
Suh-weet!
Get the full story at Guardian Unlimited after the jump!
Only 5,500 Calories To Go… – Guardian Unlimited (pops)
[tags] Super Size Me, McDonald’s, fast, food, experiment, Swedish [/tags]
