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PaperclipPerfector  18d ago (text post)   32265 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

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A blow to the CICO theory of obesity: Pre-fertilization-origin preservation of brown fat-mediated energy expenditure in humans

In mice, cold environments before pregnancy can "pre-program" fat-burning traits in offspring. Could the same be true for humans?

People conceived in colder months consistently had more active brown fat in adulthood

Cohort 4 explored energy use after eating (DIT). Again, those from the cold-fertilization group burned more calories post-meal. In Cohort 5, the DLW method showed these individuals had higher Total Energy Expenditure in daily life, even after adjusting for physical activity and body composition.

Cohort 2, which included adults of all ages, showed that cold-conceived individuals had lower body mass index, less visceral fat, and smaller waistlines. These benefits were linked to increased brown fat activity, as confirmed by structural equation modeling. Interestingly, in younger participants (Cohort 1: males aged 18–25), BMI differences were minimal, likely because they had not yet experienced age-related fat gain.

A deep dive into weather data found that lower outdoor temperatures and wider day-night temperature swings during the months before conception were the strongest predictors of adult brown fat activity.

I find this noteworthy for three reasons —

  • There’s possibly an easy and natural intervention for obesity. The Japanese neurotically dress for the weather, so how great will the effect be for those who accept the cold? “College woman walking to a party in winter wearing a short dress” was a joke when I went to school, but it was apparently pro-natal. Is it the fluctuation which is most significant? Does it need to be tied with the day-night cycle?

  • This is more evidence that humans are shockingly attuned to specific conditions they evolved in, which should be reverse-engineered to find more potentatial interventions for human flourishing. We are much more animal than we like to admit.

  • How many other “willpower problems” have less to do with willpower and more to do with 2nd and 3rd order effects which are hidden from us, or which compound invisibly? There are probably many more for obesity alone.

As others pointed out, CICO cannot be debunked in so far that thermodynamics is immutably true. It's just different factors can contribute to these variables on either side.

How many other “willpower problems” have less to do with willpower and more to do with 2nd and 3rd order effects which are hidden from us, or which compound invisibly? There are probably many more for obesity alone.

agree. Too many people, including even on the 'HBD side', downplay the role of metabolism in regard to obesity. Consider that having a faster metabolism (or more specifically, a less efficient metabolism) means being able to eat more food without becoming obese, hence less willpower is required.

As others pointed out, CICO cannot be debunked in so far that thermodynamics is immutably true. It's just different factors can contribute to these variables on either side.

The best way of thinking about it is that, CICO as an accounting tautology may be true, since it just describes weight loss/gain. But CICO as actionable dietary advice absolutely can (and has been) refuted. Simply deciding to eat fewer calories or exercise more (without doing something hacky like keto) doesn't work.

Simply deciding to do anything doesn't actually get the thing done, it's not exactly a novel insight, and I'm not aware of anyone denying it. CICO proponents don't argue for merely deciding to have a calorie deficit.

You misunderstand me. I'm arguing that successfully following CICO as diet advice is counter-productive. The Biggest Loser study showed that contestants who purposely decreased their CI (through having their food intake managed by the producers of the show) and massively increased their CO through exercise permanently reduced their metabolic rates, even after they regained the weight after the show was over. These people, who absolutely did follow CICO as advice ended up making things worse for themselves.

A person can choose to eat less. But eating less increases hunger (duh) and reduces metabolic rate. Homeostasis trumps willpower.

But obesity isn't caused by a lack of willpower (the whole world didn't get lazy in the 1970s for no reason). It's caused by a broken lipostat. This is the consensus among obesity researchers and it lines up with what we actually see. What caused the broken lipostat is still up for debate, I think it's vegetable oil but it could be something else.

But obesity isn't caused by a lack of willpower (the whole world didn't get lazy in the 1970s for no reason). It's caused by a broken lipostat. This is the consensus among obesity researchers and it lines up with what we actually see.

First google hit: *Some obese people have high body weight because they have broken lipostats, but these are a rare minority. *

I'm not sure what the page you're referencing is referring to (can you link it?), because I'm referring to the consensus among obesity researchers for explaining the obesity epidemic:

But there’s a third model, not mentioned by Ludwig or Taubes, which is the one that predominates in my field. It acknowledges the fact that body weight is regulated, but the regulation happens in the brain, in response to signals from the body that indicate its energy status. Chief among these signals is the hormone leptin, but many others play a role (insulin, ghrelin, glucagon, CCK, GLP-1, glucose, amino acids, etc.)

There: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15284410/

I am hesistant to think of it as "consensus" with so few google results.

But obesity isn't caused by a lack of willpower (the whole world didn't get lazy in the 1970s for no reason). It's caused by a broken lipostat.

The 1970s also didn't see a novel virus or chemical triggering adverse reaction leading to "broken lipostat".

I wonder how much is there overlap between people claiming Russian citizens should raise and change government and people critiquing CIco. At least you can get fit just by yourself.

I mean, the paper says that obesity isn't caused by a 'broken' lipostat but one that is set too high, which is what I meant by 'broken'. I assume they use 'broken' to refer to things like Prader-Willi Syndrome.

The lipostatic model not only explains why some people become obese whereas others do not, but also allows us to understand why energy-controlled diets do not work

That is precisely what I'm arguing. CICO (as in calorie controlled diet) doesn't work.

The 1970s also didn't see a novel virus or chemical triggering adverse reaction leading to "broken lipostat".

No, but it did see a stratospheric rise in the consumption of vegetable oil, which is what I think caused the obesity epidemic. Seed oils are definitely novel, as is a diet with 5-10x the amount of linoleic acid that humans need.

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