That’s a fantastic post thank you. How likely do you reckon it is that the obesity epidemic is driven, at least in part, by another contaminant that is not lithium?
My credence that that is the case is much higher than that lithium is a major cause of the obesity epidemic. I wouldn’t be too surprised if contaminants explained ~5-10% of the weight that Americans have gained since the early 20th century.
The arguments for contaminants that seemed most appealing to me at first (lab and wild animals getting fatter) turned out to be really dubious (as I briefly touch upon in the post), which is why I’m not more bullish on it.
Isn’t the “too palatable food” theory ridiculously easy to test, once you define what “too palatable” means? Assuming that we grant the “obesity epidemic is caused by changes in diet over the 20th century” you’d just need to switch people to an unrestricted-calorie diet that mirrors the homemade foods that our ancestors ate in the early 1900s and see if their satiety plummeted. (Here in the US that would still be a pretty diverse and filling diet that includes lots of meat, potatoes and pie.) I am skeptical that this would work (at the effect size needed to explain the obesity epidemic) but I’d love to see it tested.
The ‘components’ of our diet, e.g. meat, potatoes, etc., are very different now than earlier, and more different over the last 100 years than prior periods too.
I suspect people that are doing diets like this tho are much less obese, e.g. the Amish.
That’s a fantastic post thank you. How likely do you reckon it is that the obesity epidemic is driven, at least in part, by another contaminant that is not lithium?
My credence that that is the case is much higher than that lithium is a major cause of the obesity epidemic. I wouldn’t be too surprised if contaminants explained ~5-10% of the weight that Americans have gained since the early 20th century.
The arguments for contaminants that seemed most appealing to me at first (lab and wild animals getting fatter) turned out to be really dubious (as I briefly touch upon in the post), which is why I’m not more bullish on it.
I think they’re a proponent of the ‘too palatable food’ theory.
Isn’t the “too palatable food” theory ridiculously easy to test, once you define what “too palatable” means? Assuming that we grant the “obesity epidemic is caused by changes in diet over the 20th century” you’d just need to switch people to an unrestricted-calorie diet that mirrors the homemade foods that our ancestors ate in the early 1900s and see if their satiety plummeted. (Here in the US that would still be a pretty diverse and filling diet that includes lots of meat, potatoes and pie.) I am skeptical that this would work (at the effect size needed to explain the obesity epidemic) but I’d love to see it tested.
This metabolic ward study by Kevin Hall et al. found what the hyperpalatability hypothesis would expect.
The ‘components’ of our diet, e.g. meat, potatoes, etc., are very different now than earlier, and more different over the last 100 years than prior periods too.
I suspect people that are doing diets like this tho are much less obese, e.g. the Amish.