Department of unsubstantiated obesity claims: Chewing gum to help tackle obesity...(o: (Professor Steve Bloom's work.)

Chewing gum to help tackle obesity

Extracts:

1) "The chewing gum would act as an appetite suppressant by releasing a hormone which would make the stomach feel full, according to Professor Steve Bloom."

2) "Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Professor Bloom said: "We asked the simple question, why do you feel less hungry after lunch and it turned out there was a hormone being released."

My comments:- It is food that makes the stomach feel full, not the hormone!

FACT: Obese people need more food/more calories than people of normal weight because they have more weight to carry around and a greater surface area from which to lose heat. It is dangerous for obese people to lose weight by restricting calorie/food intake. - See Guardian report for a report in The Guardian of Monday, June 27th 2005. It is about a huge research study of nearly 3000 people over a period of 18 years. The study found that overweight people who diet to reach a healthier weight are more likely to die young than those who remain fat. It also found that dieting causes physiological damage that in the long term can outweigh the benefits of the weight loss.

But in fact, most obese people do not lose weight when they reduce calorie consumption and/or increase exercise. Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat and carbohydrate intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 BMJ article for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fat.

3) ""The idea of chewing gum was hit on because overweight people like to chew," continued Professor Bloom."

My comment: I wonder whether Professor Bloom has a scrap of evidence for this extraordinary claim? - Let us bear in mind that there is no evidence, even, that obesity is caused by overeating; it is merely an assumption that was first made many years ago and has never actually been put to the test. In this respect, it resembles the former universal belief that the earth was flat, and has been subjected to the same reasoning process, i.e. the reasoning that "it is obvious..."!! - Not very scientific...(o: - But then few could accuse the medical profession of scientific rigour...(o:

In fact, obesity is caused not by overeating, but by fluid retention, caused in turn by salt sensitivity in the groups of people vulnerable to sodium retention. I believe that all that is normally necessary to lose excess weight is to forget about calories and just eat less salt/sodium and eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. - See my webpage about vulnerable groups

You can easily put my assertion to the test. - Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)