A new discovery reveals that astrocytes, star-shaped cells in the brain, play a key role in regulating fat metabolism and obesity. These cells act on a cluster of neurons, known as the GABRA5 cluster, effectively acting as a “switch” for weight regulation.
The MAO-B enzyme in these astrocytes was identified as a target for obesity treatment, influencing GABA secretion and thus weight regulation.
KDS2010, a selective and reversible MAO-B inhibitor, successfully led to weight loss in obese mice without impacting their food intake, even while consuming a high-fat diet, and is now in Phase 1 clinical trials.
Here’s todays winner for most unintelligible title
Or how about regulate the sugar and salt content in foods? No? More magic diet medications. Got it.
Given that it may be more likely for us to put up a Solar Shield than curb our fossil fuel usage, I think we are too stuck in a “fix things after the fact” culture than using preventative solutions.
I feel like their argument against it probably needs a little unpacking.
It seems a little disingenuous to me to only examine a model where carbon emissions don’t decrease and then attribute the result to the shield. If the shield is used in addition to reducing our carbon output we’d presumably be cooling things off in both the short and long term.
The result of failing to reduce our carbon emissions is already projected to be essentially apocalyptic in scope. The rest of the planet might luck out if our own actions reduce us to a population that we’re physically incapable of continuing to output enough carbon to keep warming it, but human civilization certainly doesn’t seem like it can survive keeping it up at the very least.
If we do get it together push against the wishes of the greediest humans and act as responsible stewards of the planet, it would be smart to try to save as much as possible. If a solar shield can help protect our biodiversity and the stability of our civilization while we get our collective shit together, that’s fantastic. It may even bring with it a sense of urgency and collective responsibility to fix the problem before anything happens to our buffer.
I get the arguments about the rapidity of change if the shield fails and the difficulty of animals migrating much more quickly, but if something doesn’t give soon they’re not going to have much of anywhere to migrate anyway.
At what point does the potential benefit of the shield outweigh the risk?
If I’m falling out of an airplane and my chute is kinda lopsided or whatever in a way that might strangle me if i don’t get my head out of the way, am I just going to let myself hit the ground instead? Or am I going to take the shot I’ve got and make the most of it?
We’re in freefall and the ground is down there somewhere, rapidly coming up to make friends. We need something now.
If this is it I say we take it. And we let it be the act that prompts us to be responsible with our planet.
The problem with regulating unhealthy food is that it is likely to jack up the price of the only affordable option for a lot of people. Maybe something like subsidizing and lowering cost of healthier foods to make them more affordable instead would be good.
We dispose of 30-40% of the global food supply every year simply because it’s not profitable to sell it. It isn’t a supply issue. Subsidies are unnecessary. We could easily live in a post scarcity world if we could discard the profit motive
Oh I agree! I wish we could move past the profit motive as well, especially when it comes to food and shelter. Criminal that there are no non-profit options in these areas in most western nations.)
I was just arguing there have been campaigns to raise the price of sugary or convenience foods to get people to eat healthy. But these campaigns just end up hurting low income people who can’t afford the healthier options in the first place. I was suggesting an approach that might make healthy food more accessible - (but that’s within a shitty capitalist system.
True that! A lot of legislation passed (if you’re in a country that actually believes in passing legislation) is often incomplete. Even within a capitalist system there can be some degree of a solution achieved. Austerity has thrown a wrench in that but we’ve seen that with enough pressure the state can occasionally help.
Perhaps (I’m in the US so my ideas may not apply elsewhere) instead of additional subsidies to agriculture we could reallocate the ones were already giving out to more nutritious crops. Corn gets far too much money for example, that’s why it’s in literally everything here. It’s so cheap it’s more cost effective to process the hell out of it and turn it into something else entirely over just growing something else. Likewise, dairy gets a ton of money and we waste so much of it.
That money could be given to a broader variety of crops, alongside some sort of legislation to make the disposal of perfectly good food either outright illegal or with heavy fines involved to the point that it’s more profitable/less costly to just sell the food. Hell, tax breaks for giving it away too. Because if there’s one thing that will get rich dicks on board it’s tax breaks. Maybe throw some additional incentive to move away from pesticides and monoculture as well
There’s also a time component. Food can be quick, cheap, or healthy: but you can only choose two (at most). If people have to work for too many hours for shit pay, “unhealthy” becomes an undeniable option.
But that is only because of the current market landscape. Healthy food can also be packaged microwave ready and still be cheap. Most of the companies doing that just market it as healthy and charge a higher price for it (because people will still pay it).
Yeah I’m gonna nope on that. Messing with brain switchea so you can binge on food seems like an episode of black mirror.
But where does all the excess energy go? You can’t cheat basic physics
You just don’t digest as much nor store as much calories. So your feces and urine, as well as exhalation.
It’s not cheating basic physics, there’s just a lot of misunderstanding about how weight works in biology. Cico is not what many people believe it to be.
Absorbed calories in spent calories out would be more accurate, but nobody wants to do the more complicated math.
And some processes can technically be calorie neutral and still affect weight (like say how much water we hold)
Believe it or not, what you swallow has almost nothing to do with your weight. The only place the body absorbs energy from food is in the intestines, and the brain controls that process.
The digestive tract is a tube, open at both ends, through which food passes. The process of extracting energy from that food is complex and highly tunable: the brain controls the production and secretion of hundreds of enzymes and other chemicals, as well as the physical action of the muscles lining the tube.
The ‘basic physics’ here begins at the intestinal wall, not the mouth.
“almost nothing”? That’s dramatic, and wrong.
I mean technically, if it’s a tube, the mouth is part of the basic physics brain process. As in, if you don’t eat it, it won’t be added to the calories. The decision to eat is a brain process, too.
We’ve got drugs that play with that decision.
Unless you don’t eat at all, the decision to eat is secondary to the decision to absorb energy from it.
For example, I’ve been eating a “healthy diet” with about the same amount of exercise, for the last 3 years: first it kept my weight steady, then I lost 70 pounds in 3 months, then gained 10.
The only difference: stress levels.
People have been congratulating me for
losing weightgetting stressed out of my mind to the point of almost going crazy and killing myself. Thanks, but I was better before.I hope you are doing better now.
Believe it or not, what you swallow has almost nothing to do with your weight. The only place the body absorbs energy from food is in the intestines, and the brain controls that process.
I would believe it if I started gaining weight by just breathing. Also, no. Not the only place. Part of the alcohol consumed is absorbed through the stomach.
The digestive tract is a tube, open at both ends, through which food passes. The process of extracting energy from that food is complex and highly tunable: the brain controls the production and secretion of hundreds of enzymes and other chemicals, as well as the physical action of the muscles lining the tube.
The brain controls pretty much everything, and this everything is highly tunable. I mean, how else would well adjusted people adapt to the highly complex lives they live as adults? With commercial pills?
I’m guessing the switch they’re discussing affects the tendency of the body to store excess energy instead of just passing it thru. That is: if you don’t pack it on, you push it out. If you know what I mean…
Time to invest in coffee.
The digestive process is much more complicated than basic physics. There are all kinds of processes happening, some of them not yet understood, that regulate your appetite, weight gain, energy, etc. It’s different in each individual and for each individual it can change through various external factors.
But where does all the excess energy go?
Down the toilet
https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/11/a-chemical-hunger-part-ii-current-theories-of-obesity-are-inadequate/ is a good analysis of why calories in calories out is both true and not a good model for how weight gain/loss works in people.
Look up nutrient bioavailability, which can vary between individuals.
The body can choose to absorb more or less (and the brain have no conscious control) by regulating absorption differently. This regulation is typically used to keep your levels of nutrients steady (some stuff we eat would be deadly in the doses we eat them if it weren’t for the fact that the body can simply dump most of the particular substance until we’re running low)
ITT: People with extremely strong emotions about weight and extremely weak evidence to back up those feelings.
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