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
Oh hey, I’ve actually had Cushings from steroid use due to Crohn’s disease.
I cannot possibly convey to you how strong the appetite increase is. I ballooned up to I think 210 at my heaviest, and it was torture. There are a ton of other terrible side effects as well, but the appetite increase is most noticeable.
Like, I need you to understand, I would eat a meal and be so full I was in pain and yet the only thing my brain can think about is my next meal. I would be in a perpetual state of counting down the minutes until I got JUST unfull enough to eat more. It is utterly overwhelming, and sometimes left me in almost tears of frustration.
It certainly made me empathize with obese people more and made me kinda hate people that attack them or insist that it’s just entirely their own fault like douchebags who do not even possess an ounce of empathy or capability to put themselves in the shoes of others. You literally have no idea what other people are dealing with. It’s trivial for me to maintain weight normally no matter what I eat, it takes almost no effort. When that wasn’t true anymore, things change fucking fast. Those jackasses are trying to accuse people of not possessing willpower when for them it’s literally easy mode and they refuse to see it.
I almost died from complications of cancer of my immune system in June of 2020 (what timing, I know!), and the medication that saved my life was Prednisone at 60mg/day. That’s a fairly heavy dose of steroids, and I had to stay on it for the next 4-5 months or I’d start going downhill again.
I can honestly tell you, I have never been so fucking hungry in my entire life. It was incredible. Just absolutely ravenous. I’d eat a full, large meal, only to be ready for another one. I think I gained like 30lbs over that time.
Hormones and medications like steroids are probably the biggest contributors to diseases causing obesity.
Lipodema is another condition that can lead to obesity. Is that particular case fat is stored on the body and cannot be completely removed by diet and exercise. The most effective treatment is liposuction.
It cant.
It can make you hungrier. You eat more. You gain weight but there is no disease, pathogen, parasite … nor anything in the observable universe that can create and store fat from nothing.
Cushing is caused by a hormonal imbalance.
Although they tested me for Cushing, I turned out negative.
The reason they tested me was that I jumped from 80kg to 130kg in 4-5 months. For my entire adult life I was around 63-85kg.
My jump from 80 to 130 happened during my three epidural (to spine) cortisone shots and some new drugs added to my regimen.
Whatever I do now, I seem to not be able to go below 110. I eat less than my 40kg wife, I tried fasting, I tried eating little portions several times a day, I did keto, I ate only veggies, I tried them all. Having insulin tolerance doesn’t help as well. I am one of those fat fucks that can’t get back into shape whatever he does. I am now considering stomach balloon surgery. There is a slight chance of death, however, instead of living like this, I would rather be dead anyway as being fat comes with many other health issues.
Scientists have been searching for the “Holy Grail” of finding the right gene combinations to tell the body turn off the mechanisms that tell it to just eat and eat and “store fat for winter”. It seems to have this weird left over genetic trait from long ago in our genetic history that stubbornly tell the body to eat and store fat. If they could just find and shut off those particular switches we could solve a whole slew of medical problems for the human race. Look I know I’m hugely over simplyfying it and probably mis-stating it. But that’s the gist of it.
Steroids are horrible . I called my pharmacist bc I didn’t know wth was going on. After talking her head off for at least 30 minutes she told me I was having almost every side effect from them. My lungs got better but these days I think I’d rather just die (that was years ago)
I don’t know much about Cushings, but I have an autoimmune thyroid disease which stops your body from being able to make enough thyroxine, a hormone which controls your metabolism. In a hypothyroid state your body can’t metabolise calories for energy properly so you store a lot more fat, and your body’s fat burning processes are massively impaired. So without changing your diet at all you can become overweight and even obese. Without medication, eventually you would die. When you take the medication (thyroid hormones) and are no longer in a hypothyroid state you can then burn energy again and the weight tends to drop off over time. I have had some dramatic swings in my weight from this when unwell, despite usually being slim when well.
I have Hashimoto’s.
The thyroid gland is a butterfly shaped organ near the neck. It’s responsible for the metabolism in one’s body.
That organ tells my body: “Hey! She ate a cheeseburger, use it for energy!” Or “She ate a salad, use it for vitamins!”
It’s like a bunch of people in a factory telling the food what to do and where to go.
When you have Hashimoto’s, the immune system responsible for fighting viruses and bacteria in your body sees the thyroid as an enemy.
It’s not an enemy. It’s a friend, but the immune system is broken and decides to attack the thyroid anyway. Your thyroid instead of being fully functional is broken and can’t do it’s job properly.
Now, imagine a factory on fire. Everyone’s running around yelling orders to their worker.
“Hey you cheeseburger! Go for the energy line please!”
The cheeseburger is confused by all the alarms. Didn’t hear it, and goes straight to the hips without getting burned.
“Hey, salad! It’s your turn! Go to the liver. We need vitamin C!”
Salad wants to but the hallway is on fire. It goes to the wrong direction and is now consider a fat.
Now, all the food you eat is considered a bad food and isn’t burned for energy. You get really tired, lack vitamins, and gain a ton of weight.
>How is that possible? I was under the impression that our bodies use energy we get from food
That’s understandable normal circumstances.
You know that cortisol is a stress hormone; if you go hungry you will have a spike in cortisol, this makes you alert and motivated to find food. So you already see a connection here. When you get your food insulin is stimulated; it acts antagonistically to cortisol, so you relax. But if you have constant stimulation of cortisol, fats are not distributed equally, so people with Cushing’s gain weight around their abdomen mainly, as people with diabetes; as there is constant demand to up the insulin production. As a result of that constant struggle between insulin and cortisol most patients will develop diabetes.
Cortisol usually seeks to protect you, so it will force you to eat fatty foods and sugars, which you will notice in people with Cushing’s, after having a good meal they will keep nibbling or ask for something sweet.
Another reason, cortisol restricts energy expenditure. Essentially to the muscles, that is why they have muscle weakness. So essentially you are in constant saving mode, a lot of calories in, very little out.
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