I had never heard of slime mold time mold dot com until today, so I read back through the author's theories and I'm not convinced there's anything here.<p>His initial premise, that the cause of obesity is a mystery, doesn't seem to be that well-researched. Most importantly, he does not really poke holes in the basic premise that the cause is linked to increased availability of food in general coupled with more people living sedentary lifestyles. He even mentions that average daily caloric intake has gone up c. 400 kcal since the turn of the 20th century. Which, for someone with a maintenance-level diet, would cause a 35-45 lb. annual weight gain.<p>The antibiotic theory here doesn't seem to address the possibility of wealth and industrialization as a confounding variable. In fact, he doesn't seem to seriously address confounding variables anywhere in his analysis.<p>I don't assert that antibiotics in the food supply should not be considered harmful, but his vague hand-waving in the direction of a culprit for some great unknown mystery seems thin at best. I'd love to hear some competing takes.
Will be banned in the EU next year: <a href="https://www.saveourantibiotics.org/media/1842/2022-changes-to-european-law-farm-antibiotics.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.saveourantibiotics.org/media/1842/2022-changes-t...</a><p>(aside, but I suspect the author is One Of Us; I clicked on <a href="https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/15/a-chemical-hunger-interlude-a-cico-killer-quest-ce-que-cest/" rel="nofollow">https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/15/a-chemical-hunger-i...</a> because of the funny title, but it addresses an argument I see a lot on here and cites a HN comment!)
How does his theory explain why the UK has the most overweight people in Europe but still relatively low antibiotics use? And, yes, Swedes and Norwegians (who are from countries which banned antibiotics use a long time ago) are lean for Europeans but internationally we are still pretty fat. I am all for banning casual antibiotics use in animals (which my country has done a long time ago) but I do not buy this theory since it does not match the evidence very well.<p><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/antibiotic-use-in-livestock-in-europe" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/antibiotic-use-in-livesto...</a>
I thought anti-biotics in animals generate lean muscle mass? They would not get fed to them if they made animals fat.<p>I guess you could argue that they work differently in humans. I could certainly see that for cows and their different digestion, but pigs being omnivores are more similar.<p>I also think % body fat would be a better measure of obesity than BMI.
I think this author is not being very scientific. E.g. in part 2 he dismisses carbs as a cause of obesity, and he begins by citing a trial involving 16 people.<p>"A study from 2003 examined low-fat diets in 16 overweight people. Naturally, this low-fat diet was high in carbohydrates. When patients started the low-fat diet and were told to eat as much as they wanted, they actually ate 291 calories less per day."<p>I think it is important to note that obesity skyrockets from 1980 on. The exact year the USDA began mandating a high carb diet.
<a href="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4d5666bff20053c65b7ff2/1520620090133-5DLTOEX0RMQNJY2OR5FC/Rise+in+US+Overwight+Obsetity+Coincides+with+DGA.png?format=2500w" rel="nofollow">https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4d5666bff200...</a><p>I recommend listening to Garry Taub instead. He is a physicist. Nutrition scientists are literally not allowed to deviate from the official dietary fat causes obesity/lipid hypothesis. So it requires outsiders to get at the truth here.<p>Why We Get Fat: <a href="https://youtu.be/qKuDamgGkZQ" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/qKuDamgGkZQ</a><p>Big Fat Fiasco:
<a href="https://youtu.be/exi7O1li_wA" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/exi7O1li_wA</a><p>Big Fat Nutrition Policy:
<a href="https://youtu.be/hzQAHITIUhg" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/hzQAHITIUhg</a><p>Edit:
Carbs are sugar strung together. They are quickly chopped up and metabolized, raising your blood sugar level. To maintain homeostasis the liver responds with a squirt of Insulin. Insulin signals to your fat cells to start storing the excess sugar, which would otherwise poison you by hyperglycemia.
In a normal high fat/ low carb diet, you feel full after eating, and your blood sugar returns to normal. At this point your fat cells can release those sugars back to the blood stream (to prevent hypOglycemia). But with a low fat diet your body doesn't get enough vitamins and minerals (most of which are fat soluble and removed, or made indigestiable without fat) so you stay hungry. You are forced to eat more of this high sugar food, which keeps your blood sugar high and prevents your fat cells from completing the second part of the fat/glucose cycle. So your fat cells swell and divide, making you bigger, and the bigger you are, the more nutrients your body demands. The obesity epidemic began in 1980 when the USDA began dictating a high carb diet.<p>There are dozens of trials involving 10s of thousands of people going back 70 years that show a clear trend of carbs causing obesity in the West. I say West because it also clear that there is a genetic component involved in the carbs/fat cycle or insuline response. Which may explain why one isolated community can consume a lot of carbs from root veg and stay lean.
So livestock antibiotic use is correlated with obesity? I'm reminded of:<p><a href="https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations" rel="nofollow">https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations</a>