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External Forces Trump Inner Balance 28 Aug 2009 | 03:28 am
You may be thinking if your body is so good at defending your set point, how did your set point become too high? Ultimately, your behavior—how you respond to the environment—trumps your physiology, or...
The Vermont Prison Overfeeding Study 27 Aug 2009 | 03:28 am
Whereas the Keys study explored the body’s response to a minimal number of calories, another intriguing study looked at the opposite end of the spectrum: calorie overload. In 1964, researchers at the ...
The Minnesota Starvation Study 26 Aug 2009 | 03:27 am
Just a few years before the Framingham study began, a very different type of experiment was already underway in Minnesota, led by Ancel Keys. Dr. Keys is known for his pioneering work on the link betw...
The Framingham Heart Study 26 Aug 2009 | 03:26 am
One line of evidence comes from people involved in the Framingham Heart Study, which dates back to the 1940s. Back then, very little was known about why people had heart attacks. This landmark study, ...
Obesity as a Metabolic Disease 25 Aug 2009 | 03:26 am
The reason weight-loss medications can’t provide any real results is that we have a complex, overlapping system of checks and balances that help "defend" our body-weight set point. Many different gene...
WATCHING THE SET POINT AT WORK 25 Aug 2009 | 03:26 am
Now that we know how the set point works, let’s step back and take a look at some of the other evidence in support of the set point theory. These observations include both short- and long-term studies...
The Sensing Stomach 24 Aug 2009 | 03:25 am
The stomach communicates with the brain through the ANS, and the nerve of interest to our story is the vagus nerve (see illustration). In Latin, vagus means "wandering," an accurate description of how...
Sending Signals: A Host of Hormones 24 Aug 2009 | 03:23 am
A wealth of research has helped us understand more about the signals that talk to the hypothalamus to control body weight set points. They include the hormones insulin, leptin, adiponectin, ghrelin, a...
The Hypothalamus: Headquarters of the Set Point 23 Aug 2009 | 03:23 am
About the size of an almond, your hypothalamus sits atop your pituitary gland at the base of the brain, just above the roof of your mouth. This well-protected location speaks to the vital importance o...
The Autonomic Nervous System 23 Aug 2009 | 03:23 am
All the nerves in your body that extend beyond your brain and spine belong to the peripheral nervous system. The autonomic nervous system (ANS), which controls the organs and muscles inside the body, ...
