体内细菌如何塑造你的腰围_BEC初级作文

体内细菌如何塑造你的腰围

A CALORIE is a calorie. Eat too many and spend too few, and you will become obese and sickly. This is the conventional wisdom. But increasingly, it looks too simplistic. All calories do not seem to be created equal, and the way the body processes the same calories may vary dramatically from one person to the next.

This is the intriguing suggestion from the latest research into metabolic syndrome, the nasty clique that includes high blood pressure, high blood sugar, unbalanced cholesterol and, of course, obesity. This uniquely modern scourge has swept across America, where obesity rates are notoriously high. But it is also doing damage from Mexico to South Africa and India, raising levels of disease and pushing up health costs.

Metabolic syndrome can still be blamed on eating too much and exercising too little. But it is crucial to understand why some foods are particularly harmful and why some people gain more weight than others. Thankfully, researchers are beginning to offer explanations in a series of recent papers.

体内细菌如何塑造你的腰围1

One debate concerns the villainy of glucose, which is found in starches, and fructose, found in fruits, table sugar and, not surprisingly, high-fructose corn syrup. Diets with a high “glycaemic index”, raising glucose levels in the blood, seem to promote metabolic problems. David Ludwig of Boston Children’s Hospital has shown that those on a diet with a low glycaemic index experience metabolic changes that help them keep weight off, compared with those fed a low-fat diet. This challenges the notion that a calorie is a calorie. Others, however, blame fructose, which seems to promote obesity and insulin resistance. Now a study published in Nature Communications by Richard Johnson, of the University of Colorado, explains that glucose may do its harm, in part, through its conversion to fructose.