| |
January 28, 2005
James Levine and his team at
the Mayo clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, have just completed
a 10-year study into what sorts
the bone-idle thin from the most languid obese people.
The
answer, they report in the US journal Science today, is Neat
or non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
Neat, they say, is
more powerful than pumping iron or running on the spot. Low
Neat means obese people sit down on average 150 more minutes
each day than even the laziest lean people.
"Our patients have
told us for years that they have low metabolism, and as caregivers,
we have never quite understood what that means - until today," said
Dr Levine. "The answer is they have low Neat, which means they
have a biological need to sit more. ...Our study shows that
the calories people burn in their everyday activities - their
Neat - are... more important in obesity than we previously
imagined."
The decade-long study, which involved 150 people
in total, required 20 volunteers - 10 thin, 10 obese - to wear
special underwear that recorded their every movement. They
were also given special meals and gave up all unauthorised
snacks.
And then the scientists tried another regime. They
made the thin volunteers consume an extra 1,000 calories a
day, and they underfed the larger ones by 1,000 calories. Even
when they lost weight, the naturally obese moved less, while
the naturally thin walked and fidgeted more.
The Guardian
|
