I just watched an episode of House and he diagnosed a girl with Cushing’s – an illness that can cause obesity.
How is that possible? I was under the impression that our bodies use energy we get from food, and if it doesn’t get the food it’ll burn fat resulting in us getting slimmer – how can a disease change that?
How does it not go against some laws of thermodynamics? Maybe I’m just being silly.
In: Biology
We had a horse who lived the last years of her life with Cushing’s disease, kept well under control (with a medicine that was withdrawn from human use but deemed safe for horses).
Yes, fat comes from eating food. But Cushing’s messes with how a horse’s body allocates energy intake. The food energy used for maintaining muscle typically is misdirected into useless functions like building a crest— a big fat-storage hump— on the neck, while precious muscle tissue wastes away. (In horses “Cushings” is actually a slightly different disease than in humans but this is the gist.)
Now as to how a human patient gets fat from illness and/or its meds— well, it’s true that fat comes from food. But our patient might be eating the same amount as ever, but not building/maintaining muscle. Note that this would NOT mean they’re *getting bigger*— if they’re doing that, then they’re obviously overeating.
But it is entirely possible to get weak, flabby and fatty even when you’re small. Desk jockeys everywhere know it!
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