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America's top health authorities and commentators do not understand several important aspects of nourishment. For decades scientists have been telling us to balance food intake with energy expenditure. We're told that because fat has more than twice as many calories per gram as protein or carbohydrate, eating too much fat is the "quickest route to obesity." There is, however, obscure research available indicating that the body does not absorb every calorie that finds its way into the stomach. The digestive system is basically a chambered tube with an entrance and an exit. Just as a wood stove does not transfer all of the heat released through combustion to the environment being heated, the transfer of digested energy molecules is considerably less than 100 percent efficient. Researchers report overall calorie excretion rates ranging from 20 to 60 percent and fat excretion rates ranging from 2 to 42 percent. The soluble fiber fraction in the food is largely responsible for the percentage of calories that exit with the fecal material. Another important consideration is the fact that, physiologically, the body constantly remodels itself internally to accommodate quality, quantity, and timing of food intake. For example, the size of the stomach and the surface area of the small intestine tend to increase with food denial and decrease with increased fat consumption thus changing the absorption efficiency of the digestive system. Also important is brown fat tissue, the fat-burning metabolic furnace that helps the body regulate its temperature. A poor quality diet that promotes fat gain also causes brown fat tissue to atrophy. There's some evidence that wearing loose, light clothing increases brown fat tissue activity. As with calorie excretion, brown fat tissue is mostly ignored by authors of textbooks and weight loss literature. Nutrition writers would also do well to pay attention to various aspects of physiological and biochemical individuality. Dr. Roger Williams has pointed out that the stomach capacity of so called "normal" people varies by a factor of ten. Measurements of size and shape of other organs and glands reveals similar variations in capacity and efficiency. Note the biochemical implications of these physiological facts. Variations in size of glandular structures imply variations in efficiency of hormone producing systems. Since many hormones exist in teams that balance each other, genetic tendencies to gain weight or remain slim would be determined by the relative efficiencies of paired hormone systems (See The Schwarzbein Principle II by Diana Schwarzbein, MD for an excellent discussion of this principle).
Approximate Word count = 1568
Approximate Pages = 6.3
(250 words per page double spaced)
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