Australian Men\'s Fitness - 09.2019

24 MEN’S FITNESS SEPTEMBER 2019

Weight loss
Breakthroughs

Sleeping with a TV or

light on in the bedroom

may be a risk factor

for gaining weight, say

scientists at the US

National Institutes of

Health. Exposure to

artificial light at night

may alter hormones

and other biological

processes in ways

that raise the risk

of health conditions

like obesity. While an

unhealthy diet and

sedentary lifestyle

remain the most

commonly cited

causes of weight gain,

switching all the lights

off before you head

to Bedfordshire – or

wearing a sleeping

mask – could help keep

your weight under

control even more.

The global obesity epidemic is

so far-reaching, it now has a

name: “globesity”. A research

team in the US may have found one

answer to why we’re getting fatter –

a mutation in the gene that regulates

the key hormone suppressing hunger,

leptin. Humans need adequate

leptin circulating levels to tell the

brain that their body fat content is

enough and they don’t need to keep

eating more food. In other words,

leptin signals mammals to stop eating.

By researching what goes wrong

when genes don’t code correctly

for the production of leptin, scientists

are coming closer to answers that

could help millions of people with

metabolic disorders which are fuelled

by obesity, such as cardiovascular

disease and diabetes.

Hunger busters

13

%

of the world’s

adult population

is obese.

28

%

of the Aussie

population

is obese.

2

in

3

Aussie adults

are overweight

or obese.

■If you want to enjoy

your food and eat

less of it, sit down.

Standing up while

eating can mute taste

buds,impacting

taste, temperature

perception and overall

consumption volume.

So says research from

the University of

South Florida, US,

which found posture

impacts taste

perception, with food

tasting better when

you’re sitting down.

It’s all to do with the

Take a seat

extra physical stress

that the body is under

when standing. This

stress causes a chain

reaction within the

body, which reduces

sensory sensitivity,

including your sense

of taste. This effect

also works in reverse,

with less palatable

foods tasting less

unpleasant when

eaten standing. This

is a great trick to get

your kids to eat their

Brussels sprouts

(you’re welcome).

Please

be seated.

■You can blame

junk food or lack of

exercise. But long

before the modern

obesity epidemic,

evolution made us

fat, too. Humans

are chubbier than

chimpanzees,

despite having

nearly identical DNA,

and compared to

our closest animal

relatives, even people

with six-pack abs

have considerable fat

reserves. While other

primates have less

than 9% body

fat, a healthy

Monkey business

range for humans is

anywhere from 14% to

31%. Researchers from

Duke Uni, US, have

revealed why this is

the case – chimps

and early humans

underwent critical

shifts in how DNA is

packaged inside their

fat cells. As a result,

this decreased the

human body’s ability

to turn “bad” calorie-

storing white fat into

the “good” calorie-

burning brown kind.

Humans, like chimps,

need fat to cushion

vital organs, insulate

us from cold and

buffer us from

starvation. But early

humans may have

needed to plump up

for another reason

• as an additional
  source of energy
  to fuel our growing,
  hungry brains.

Do the

funky

gibbon.

HEAVY

LIGHTS