this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
145 points (100.0% liked)
Science
13014 readers
75 users here now
Studies, research findings, and interesting tidbits from the ever-expanding scientific world.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
Be sure to also check out these other Fediverse science communities:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Believe it or not, what you swallow has almost nothing to do with your weight. The only place the body absorbs energy from food is in the intestines, and the brain controls that process.
The digestive tract is a tube, open at both ends, through which food passes. The process of extracting energy from that food is complex and highly tunable: the brain controls the production and secretion of hundreds of enzymes and other chemicals, as well as the physical action of the muscles lining the tube.
The 'basic physics' here begins at the intestinal wall, not the mouth.
"almost nothing"? That's dramatic, and wrong.
I mean technically, if it's a tube, the mouth is part of the basic physics brain process. As in, if you don't eat it, it won't be added to the calories. The decision to eat is a brain process, too.
We've got drugs that play with that decision.
Unless you don't eat at all, the decision to eat is secondary to the decision to absorb energy from it.
For example, I've been eating a "healthy diet" with about the same amount of exercise, for the last 3 years: first it kept my weight steady, then I lost 70 pounds in 3 months, then gained 10.
The only difference: stress levels.
People have been congratulating me for ~~losing weight~~ getting stressed out of my mind to the point of almost going crazy and killing myself. Thanks, but I was better before.
I hope you are doing better now.
It's also easy easier to discriminate against far people if you can define it as a moral failure of just not putting food in your gob.
Unlike close people. Those are always bastards invading personal spaces.
I would believe it if I started gaining weight by just breathing. Also, no. Not the only place. Part of the alcohol consumed is absorbed through the stomach.
The brain controls pretty much everything, and this everything is highly tunable. I mean, how else would well adjusted people adapt to the highly complex lives they live as adults? With commercial pills?