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Stanford Medicine: Weight flux alters molecular profile
I’ve long felt that how I feel is directly related to my body fat level—lower always better, and I feel best at under 10% body fat.
A fantastically interesting body of research is emerging on gut biome. Here is a related “omics” study that ties into that area. Read the whole article—fascinating/
These findings that dovetail with theories I’ve long held based on two decades of tracing my own physiological state, that is, that most of the population is profoundly unhealthy because of lack of exercise long with corresponding weight gain and an entire cascade of unhealthy problems that follow.
Stanford Medicine: Weight flux alters molecular profile
Stanford scientists have found links between changes in a person’s weight and shifts in their microbiome, immune system and cardiovascular system.
The human body undergoes dramatic changes during even short periods of weight gain and loss, according to a study led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. As people pack on pounds or shed excess weight, they exhibit notable changes in their microbiome, cardiovascular system, immune system and levels of gene expression, the study found.
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Snyder and his colleagues found that even with modest weight gain — about 6 pounds — the human body changed in dramatic fashion at the molecular level. Bacterial populations morphed, immune responses and inflammation flared, and molecular pathways associated with heart disease activated. But that’s not the end of the story. When study participants lost the weight, most of the rest of the body’s systems recalibrated back to their original states, the study found.
Snyder’s lab has a particular interest in understanding weight change on the microscale among people who are insulin resistant, meaning their glucose-processing ability is compromised, because it’s a common precursor to Type 2 diabetes. To that end, the study compared differences in baseline omics of insulin-resistant participants with those of healthy individuals. The researchers then looked at two major questions: How does weight gain affect omics profiles? And, what happens once that weight is lost?
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The participants received a high-calorie diet, and after 30 days they had, on average, tacked on 6 pounds. And with weight gain — moderate though it was — omics profiles shifted too. Inflammation markers went up in both the insulin-resistant and healthy groups. In insulin-sensitive participants, a microbial population called Akkermansia muciniphila, which is known to protect against insulin resistance, shot up. But perhaps the most striking change was a shift in gene expression associated with increased risk for a type of heart failure called dilated cardiomyopathy, in which the heart cannot pump blood efficiently to the rest of the body, Snyder said.
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