There is a new fright on the dieting scene, body pollution! When people lose weight through fat metabolization anything that might also be dissolved in that fat will also be freed into the blood stream. This is the mechanism behind acid “flash backs.” Well it turns out that quite a few environmental pollutants are fat soluble. Also, when people lose weight there is a natural hormone that is released to slow the body’s metabolism. This theoretically is designed to help a person survive a period without food. Drug manufacturers are interested in manipulating the body’s response to this hormone since preventing it from doing its job would help many lose weight faster.
To that end scientists investigated the blood levels of the hormone (leptin) in obese patients put on calorie restricted diets [1]. In addition to the hormone they also tracked the levels of 14 polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and 11 pesticides. What they found was that the pollution cocktail increased by 23 percent in the blood stream and that even when leptin levels declined the body’s metabolism remained suppressed. The only explanation was that the pollution cocktail was somehow involved though the exact mechanism is unknown.
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[1] A Toxic Side of Weight Loss: Pollutants may slow body's metabolism" Science News, July 17, 2004; Vol. 166, No. 3 ($ subscription article)
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