As a followup, the portrait I painted of “chemically-induced tired brain misfiring syndrome”-induced obesity (CITBMS-obesity) seems to suggest a link between obesity and depression would be associated. There does appear to be a link or a U-shaped association between BMI and depression (I’ve only scanned the abstracts).
And as I understand it, we can totally have a CITMBS-obesity epidemic and also a CITMBS-underweight problem at the same time. “Chemically induced weight dysregulation” might be what we’d be looking at.
In such a case, actually, that might make it hard to use the studies we’ve looked at so far to gain information. If the curve is U-shaped, the two ends of the curve may cancel out when averaged together and disguise the effect.
I hadn’t thought of that before. Now my credences for lithium and contamination are back up. It doesn’t completely jive with the story I was telling earlier—now we have a piece where, perhaps, the chemically stressed brain gets hungry/thirsty in some people and loses appetite in others. Both seem plausible. I guess we’d want to look for a relationship between lithium (or other contaminants) and extremes of weight, rather than a correlation between BMI and lithium concentration.
In such a case, actually, that might make it hard to use the studies we’ve looked at so far to gain information. If the curve is U-shaped, the two ends of the curve may cancel out when averaged together and disguise the effect.
Note that this does not seem to be what has happened at a population level in the US. BMI seems to have increased pretty much at all levels — even the 0.5th percentile has increased from NHANES I (in the early 70′s) to the 2017-March 2020 NHANES, as has the minimum adult BMI. And the difference is not subtle.
For instance, here are the thinnest people in the last NHANES versus the first one:
Psychological health impact of chronic environmental contamination is understudied… The meta-analyses observed small-to-medium effects of experiencing CEC on anxiety, general stress, depression, and PTSD. However, there was also evident risk of bias in the data.
So not impossible? And perhaps there are methodologies here that could be useful for looking more broadly at a CEC theory of obesity?
As a followup, the portrait I painted of “chemically-induced tired brain misfiring syndrome”-induced obesity (CITBMS-obesity) seems to suggest a link between obesity and depression would be associated. There does appear to be a link or a U-shaped association between BMI and depression (I’ve only scanned the abstracts).
And as I understand it, we can totally have a CITMBS-obesity epidemic and also a CITMBS-underweight problem at the same time. “Chemically induced weight dysregulation” might be what we’d be looking at.
In such a case, actually, that might make it hard to use the studies we’ve looked at so far to gain information. If the curve is U-shaped, the two ends of the curve may cancel out when averaged together and disguise the effect.
I hadn’t thought of that before. Now my credences for lithium and contamination are back up. It doesn’t completely jive with the story I was telling earlier—now we have a piece where, perhaps, the chemically stressed brain gets hungry/thirsty in some people and loses appetite in others. Both seem plausible. I guess we’d want to look for a relationship between lithium (or other contaminants) and extremes of weight, rather than a correlation between BMI and lithium concentration.
Note that this does not seem to be what has happened at a population level in the US. BMI seems to have increased pretty much at all levels — even the 0.5th percentile has increased from NHANES I (in the early 70′s) to the 2017-March 2020 NHANES, as has the minimum adult BMI. And the difference is not subtle.
For instance, here are the thinnest people in the last NHANES versus the first one:
The relevant Google Colab cells start here.
And then there’s this study: Chronic environmental contamination: A systematic review of psychological health consequences (again, I’m just skimming abstracts).
So not impossible? And perhaps there are methodologies here that could be useful for looking more broadly at a CEC theory of obesity?