Energy balance
Obesity and metabolic disease are driven by cell-specific competition for calories where fat cells (adipocytes) and skeletal muscle cells outcompete energy-sensing cells in the brain and liver, creating 'false signals' of energy deficit that trigger increased food intake.
Focus on improving the 'competitiveness' of your skeletal muscle and liver cells against fat cells. This is primarily achieved through physical activity, which depletes stored energy in muscles and liver, forcing them to compete more effectively for blood glucose and lipids. This reduces 'false signals' of hunger caused by fat cells hoarding energy. Exercise is not just for burning calories; it is a tool to reset cellular nutrient partitioning.
Thus, we posit that the chronic positive energy balance (i.e., over-nutrition) that leads to obesity and metabolic diseases is engendered by apparent deficits (i.e., false signals) driven by the asymmetric inter-cellular competition for calories and concomitant differential partitioning of nutrient-energy to storage.
Why this rating
This is a hypothesis/theory paper citing established physiological principles but lacking new primary clinical trial data to prove the specific 'competition' mechanism causally.
Source
Cell-Specific “Competition for Calories” Drives Asymmetric Nutrient-Energy Partitioning, Obesity, and Metabolic Diseases in Human and Non-human Animals
Edward Archer et al. · Frontiers in Physiology · 2018
DOI 10.3389/fphys.2018.01053
More from this paper
- Physical activity increases the competitive advantage of skeletal muscle cells by depleting their stored energy (glycogen/lipids), thereby improving insulin sensitivity and reducing the partitioning of nutrients to fat cells.Good
- Fat cell hyperplasia (increase in number) is the primary competitive strategy of adipocytes, leading to increased partitioning of nutrients to fat and poorer treatment outcomes for weight loss compared to hypertrophy (increase in size).Good
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