Peptides are organic substances of which the molecules are structurally like those of proteins, but smaller. Peptide Hormones include insulin, leptin, ghrelin, glucagon, growth hormone, obestatin as well as many, many others.
For many years Dr. Woods has been involved in obesity scientific research, primarily re insulin.
He said that a key question is whether the Responses that counter drug/food effects are actually Unconditional, invariant and whether or not traditional concepts of Homeostatsis are viable.
Homeostatic Controls - Hypothalamus (part of the brain primarily involved with involuntary stimulas and response of Peptides)
and....
Non-Homeostatic Controls – Amugdala, Accumbens, etc ( parts of the brain involving Anxiety, social situations, learning, hedonics, etc.)
The process of Homostaisis can be disturbed by Non-Homeostatic Controls.
Food intake involves BOTH types of Controls at the same time. Food intake is a Behavior which involves BOTH (unconditioned) physiological and (conditioned) psychological factors: An Example of a Conditioned stimulas and Conditioned response is Pavlov’s dog.
Based on his many years of involvement with scientific research re Peptides, Dr. Woods states the following Conclusions:
Conclusion 1: Different labs get different results when administering Peptides and assessing food inake.
Conclusion 2: Peptides alter food intake in some situations and not others.
Conclusion 3: The ability of a Peptide to alter food intake varies within the same lab.
Conclusion 4: Subtle, or not so subtle, environmental factors can determine whether a Peptide influences food intake, and can even reverse the direction of the response.
For the past eight-and-a-half years I’ve entered all of my daily food into a computer program that tells me the micronutrients in that food, including calories. The computer program that I choose to use is called DietPower.
I’ve written quite a lot about calories, including the impossibility of achieving a totally accurate calorie count. Below are links to two of those articles:
A calorie is simply a measurement of energy, the amount of heat that something gives off through chemical processes. This is an “inexact” scientific concept which has been simplified for general use. Although there is nothing “perfectly accurate” about a calorie measurement, at this time there doesn’t appear to be an alternative way for Science to better measure the potential energy which is contained inside foods.
For me, “counting calories” is personally helpful as a “general” measuring tool,
while understanding that:
All bodies are not the same.
It is important not to put too much Faith into the exact calorie numbers that “Experts” SAYone’s body burns.
It is important not to put too much Faith into the exact calorie numbers allegedly contained in any food item.
Even though it is true that our bodies process different macronutrients differently, … at the end of the day… it still remains that if a body consumes more energy than a body expends, it will accumulate fat.
The article below states the Paleo / Low-Carb position against using calories as a food measurement tool, which is basically: “The concept of the “calorie”, as applied to nutrition, is an oversimplification so extreme as to be untrue in practice.”
There Is No Such Thing As A “Calorie” (To Your Body) by J. Stanton, online Paleo blogger,
author of The Gnoll Credo (2010) (science fiction fantasy about primitive man)
Below is a CBS News video of 3/6/13 which is from an article by Kelly Crowe about the new book by Michael Moss, “Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us” (2/26/2013) I previously ordered a hardback copy of that book from Amazon and finished reading it yesterday.
A recent research study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has received quite a lot of recent media coverage.
Here are the basics of that study.
Myths, Presumptions, and Facts about Obesity Research Study Published 1/31/2013
in the New England Journal of Medicine.
BACKGROUND Many beliefs about obesity persist in the absence of supporting scientific evidence (presumptions); some persist despite contradicting evidence (myths). The promulgation of unsupported beliefs may yield poorly informed policy decisions, inaccurate clinical and public health recommendations, and an unproductive allocation of research resources and may
divert attention away from useful, evidence-based information.
METHODS Using Internet searches of popular media and scientific literature, we identified, reviewed, and classified obesity-related myths and presumptions. We also examined facts that are well supported by evidence, with an emphasis on those that have practical implications for public health, policy, or clinical recommendations.
RESULTS We identified seven obesity-related myths concerning the effects of small sustained increases in energy intake or expenditure, establishment of realistic goals for weight loss, rapid weight loss, weight-loss readiness, physical-education classes, breast-feeding, and energy expended during sexual activity. We also identified six presumptions about the purported effects of regularly eating breakfast, early childhood experiences, eating fruits and vegetables, weight cycling, snacking, and the built (i.e., human-made) environment. Finally, we identified nine evidence-supported facts that are relevant for the formulation of sound public health, policy, or clinical recommendations.
CONCLUSIONS False and scientifically unsupported beliefs about obesity are pervasive in both scientific literature and the popular press.
(Funded by the National Institutes of Health.)
Below are the myths, presumptions and facts:
Here are the beliefs that were found to be untrue.
Apparently, evolution has given us the mechanisms to gain weight but not to lose it. BEFORE indulging over the Holidays, think about what Dr. Ayra Sharma, professor of medicine and chair of obesity research and management at the University of Alberta, Canada has to say about this issue.
How The Hedonic System Ratchets Up Your Weight
“Bill Colmers, the neuroscientist, presented an overview of how the brain affects eating behaviour and regulates body weight.
I was particularly impressed by how Colmers described the respective roles of the hedonic and homeostatic systems in human evolution.
While the hedonic (pleasure seeking) system evolved to help our hunter-gatherer ancestors seek out and take advantage of any highly palatable energy dense foods they happened to come upon, the homeostatic system evolved to protect from wasting away those extra calories that they did ingest.
Thus, according to Colmers, the hedonic system’s job was to make it hard to resist, in fact, make our ancestors to often go to considerable lengths to searching out those rare palatable energy dense foods and then to eat as much of them as possible, whether they were actually hungry or not. They could of course always store those extra calories as fat tissue for later use - a tremendous survival advantage.
In contrast, the job of the homeostatic system was to ‘defend’ those stored calories - in fact, it is designed to regard any accumulation of fat stores as the ‘new normal’ and from then on make sure that this increased level of fatness was maintained (or regained) ever after.
Indeed, the homeostatic system is ‘designed’ to readjust its set point of body weight - after all it has to do this starting from birth as body weight continues to increase as the baby grows into a toddler that grows into a kid and ultimately into an adult.
Unfortunately, the mechanisms that allow the set point to reset to ‘defend’ a progressively higher body weight - generally works in only one direction - after all that is all that is required by nature, where people do not naturally ’shrink’.
Colmers used the analogy of a ratchet to describe how the homeostatic system is designed to defend ever increasing body weights without having the ability to reset itself to a lower body weight even if the person now wants to lose weight.
Once set to a higher weight (e.g. resulting from ‘overindulgence’ driven by the hedonic system or other factors that may promote weight gain), the homeostatic system uses a wide range of mechanisms affecting hunger, satiety, appetite, metabolic rate, etc. to ‘defend’ this weight from then on.
A very helpful analogy I thought, nicely explaining why evolution has given us the mechanisms to gain weight but not to lose it.”
Dr. Arya Sharma, professor of medicine and chair of obesity research and management at the University of Alberta, Canada.
Feb 07, 2013 DietHobby's Second Anniversary Created just 2 years ago, DietHobby now contains more than 500 articles and more than 300 videos.
Nov 07, 2012 Article by Gary Taubes about Sugar Don't miss the recently published article by Gary Taubes, author of "Why We Get Fat" featured in DietHobby's BOOKTALK.
Aug 25, 2012 Over 1,400,000 YouTube views of DietHobby's videos. DietHobby’s companion YouTube DietHobby channel now registers more than 1,400,000 video views of the 320 videos made for this DietHobby website.
For me, “counting calories” is personally helpful as a “general” measuring tool, 
I previously ordered a hardback copy of that book from Amazon and finished reading it yesterday. 
Below are the myths, presumptions and facts:
BEFORE indulging over the Holidays, think about what 
