Exercise helps dieters slim down in more ways than one, researchers say
Interesting to read this LA Times, online.
Plus I like to imagine obese rats EXERCISING too (Mentioned in the article) ... I would cheer them on,
"Go !! You can do it !! Faster !! Come on !! Push yourself, RAT !! Move those legs !!"
Awesome !!
Cheers !
Marc
38 Years Old, 5'10" Tall
Nov. 1st. 2008 : 280 Pounds
Nov. 1st. 2009 : 190 Pounds
(1 Year : - 90 Pounds)
Current Weight : 192 Pounds
http://bit.ly/cBXBa2
"Dieters everywhere know that exercise is a key component of any weight-loss regimen. To drop pounds, you have to burn more calories than you take in.
But exercise helps in another way too – it resets the chemicals in your brain that regulate appetite.
That’s the conclusion of a study published Tuesday in the journal PLoS Biology.
Brazilian researchers discovered this by forcing obese rats to swim or spend some quality time on a treadmill. Then they monitored their food intake over the next 12 hours. Sure enough, the post-workout rats ate less than their sedentary counterparts. In fact, they ate the same amount as lean rats.
Additional experiments verified that exercise altered the brain chemistry of the obese rats. Some key signaling molecules – which help neurons “talk†to each other balancing calories in and calories out – were restored to the levels found in lean rats. Exercise also reestablished the ability of a hormone called leptin to let the brain know when it was time to stop eating.
The initial experiments involved only two days of exercise. When the rats were made to exercise for four weeks, the researchers found that the obese rats ate less and lost weight during the first three days. After that, their appetities returned to their pre-exercise levels. However, their metabolism continued to benefit.
Exercise didn’t change the appetite or brain chemistry of lean rats, the researchers found. That makes sense because their brains were already doing a good job of maintaining a healthy weight, they said.
Karen Kaplan, LA Times"
Obese rats exercising *HARD*
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Joking aside, what can we be sure of learning from studies such as this? The idea of obese rats and mice "exercising hard" - ever wondered how the experimenter "forces" them to do it? By putting them in a deep tank of water with nowhere to climb out - and for them, the choice is "swim or drown".
If a creature is swimming in constant fear of drowning, how accurate and useful is it to describe that activity solely as "exercise" as though that fear had no part in the neurological changes that are then observed?
And what thanks do our little furry friends get at the end of it all? "fasted for 9 hours and decapitated" - takes all the fun out of it for me.
If a creature is swimming in constant fear of drowning, how accurate and useful is it to describe that activity solely as "exercise" as though that fear had no part in the neurological changes that are then observed?
And what thanks do our little furry friends get at the end of it all? "fasted for 9 hours and decapitated" - takes all the fun out of it for me.