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
>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
That’s still true, but lots of things can throw a wrench in that process. Cushing’s, for example, is caused by an excessive amount of a hormone called cortisol. Hormones are a broad class of chemicals that regulate how bodily systems and functions work. Too much cortisol frequently causes in increase in appetite, which leads to overeating and weight gain, and also interferes with the body’s normal process of storing and braking down fat. In other words, it tells your body to do the wrong thing, sort of like a broken traffic light. Something like a tumor in the pituitary gland of the brain can cause your body to create too much cortisol, therefore leading to weight gain.
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