The Third Edit: It may be time to lose the weight loss diet
Nov 20, 2024 03:20 IST
First published on: Nov 20, 2024 at 03:20 IST
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The trouble with fat is not just its incredible obduracy, but its long memory. This, according to a study published in Nature this month, is one big reason why people who have successfully lost weight struggle to keep the kilos off in the long term. It seems that the experience of obesity leads to permanent changes in key parts of the fat cells, making them incapable of resuming normal functioning even after a weight loss episode. This lingering “memory”, which operates at the most basic level of the cell, effectively ensures the much-dreaded “yo-yo” effect of most weight-loss diets.
Why bother shedding the excess baggage, if one’s fat cells won’t allow the weight to stay off? In light of the new finding, this is a question that can cut both ways. For the optimistic, it is a promise of freedom, allowing them to step off the diet-and-exercise carousel, and to focus on health without obsessing over weight. The pessimistic, however, might sink further into despair, finding themselves engaged in a losing battle with stubborn DNA. The study also puts paid to the excess of faith that has been reposed in “miracles” like Ozempic and Wegovy: The semaglutide drugs, which work by mimicking hormones responsible for signalling satiety in the body, would also, in the long run, prove to be ineffective against fat’s fundamental stubbornness.
At the very least, the new findings suggest that there is no longer any need to continue the periodic villainisation of this or that food: The latest to catch it in the neck — thanks to online health influencers, the 21st century version of snake-oil salesmen — are seed oils like sunflower, safflower, cottonseed and soybean. Nutritionists have long argued about the futility of cutting out entire food groups: That weight gain may just come down to the molecular level should be argument enough against fad diets and social-media scaremongers.
