Food for thought 'fattening'

2005-10-18 13:39

Deborah Jones

Vancouver - Working with the brain instead of brawn may be adding to the obesity epidemic in the developed world, new research suggests, and not just because people get little physical activity while sitting at a desk.

When people do "brain" work, such as reading documents or working on a computer keyboard, the brain uses glucose for energy, says Angelo Tremblay, a professor of kinesiology at Laval University in the Canadian province of Quebec.

Tremblay studied the energy use and consumption by 15 young adults doing intellectual work or resting.

He found that when they worked for 45 minutes on a computer they burned just three calories of energy, but that after their work they consumed an extra 220 calories of food compared to the amount they ate after resting for 45 minutes.

The three calories used are negligible, he said, but the extra food is the equivalent to three apples or three slices of bread.

"I argue that our way of working is a problem that was unexpected, not only because we are sedentary, but because it increases glucose instability," he said in an interview.

Link between toxins, obesity

Tremblay believes that the changes in the way people work in the "information age" have coincided with rising obesity.

"This is a major societal change. We wanted to reduce the place of physical labour in our life and we succeeded so much that we pushed the pendulum totally to the other side."

Earlier, Tremblay told an international conference on obesity in this western Canadian city that there is evidence of a strong link between toxins and obesity, both as a possible cause and as a problem for obese people after they lose weight.

Speaking at the annual scientific meeting of NAASO, The Obesity Society, he said there is evidence that organ chlorines reduce an obese person's ability to use energy efficiently, and so hamper further weight loss and also make it harder to keep weight off.

A high concentration of organ chlorines "will slow down metabolism, and reduce the concentration of hormones that increase metabolism," he said.

Despite being banned for decades in western countries, they are present in every human on the planet in "biologically significant" amounts.

Also, Tremblay said not enough research has been done on how very concentrated toxins affect obese people who have lost weight. "If you ask me if it is a catastrophe for obese individuals, I would not be able to answer."

- AFP