An interesting and entirely inappropriate trend has developed on this show.

Individuals decide that they should leave the show while others must stay. They accomplish this by gaining, rather than losing, pounds. The show is about brave people in an uphill battle doing amazing things, except for when the strategy dictated by the rules of the show lead individuals to gain weight on a show about losing weight, add fat in a contest to lose fat, do something unhealthy on a show about being more healthy. Older contestants say the youngsters are like their children, and thus are willing to sacrifice themselves by adding fat. Sometimes it is actual parents giving up their own position on the show for their actual children. Two twins tried to save each other’s place on the show (both failed successfully, somehow). At some point, it became a matter of guilt. If you did not go along with some plan to save one or more other contestant by putting weight on rather than taking it off, then you were a bad person.

I call bullshit at two levels. First, on the individual level, this should be rather obvious. There are a lot of reasons a person is two or three hundred pounds over their “healthy” weight, but one of them is liking to eat pie a lot more than liking to get some exercise. (I oversimplify.¹) There are other reasons, but that is one of them. I’m sorry, but when I see a bunch of people who for thirty years have preferred pie over running and doing jumping jacks competing with each other to see who gets to NOT lose weight in a given week to “save” the others, I’m thinking …. well, I won’t say it because someone will likely get mad at me. So I’m not going to say it. You already know what I’m thinking.

Second, there is the level of the game itself, the show, and their rules. This show … The Biggest Loser … is about saving people’s lives. People who are morbidly obese (or, as a TV news caster once said “morbidly overbese”) may need to lose dozens and dozens of pounds to save their own lives. “Eliminating” people from a game like this is not just a matter of drama or show. It is a matter of health. It may even be a matter of life and death. But, I’m sure the marketing drones at the network that puts this show on insist on elimination because of some survey they’ve done.

That whole situation may change the first time a “Biggest Loser” loser, a person voted off or sent home by the rules, dies of a heart attack. Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet. Well, I think they should change the rules first. Stop voting people off. Just make losing more weight a very very desirable goal. Like everybody gets a car. A small car (more incentive!).

Writing this blog post was a lot of work. I feel weak. I think I need a piece of pie.²

¹And when I say I “oversimplify” I’m trying to give you a pointer to the fact that the problems people who end up weighing two or three hundred pounds or more than they probably should are not about liking pie. See comments below in which people scream at me. They make important points.

²Disarming reference to my own inadequacy.

In rodents. So far.

The research team made obese rodents exercise was found to increase the amount of IL-6 and IL-10 protein levels in the hypothalamus, which in turn changed the threshold for the feedback system that ultimately releases insulin and leptin, which are the magic juices that seem to affect hunger and related system. Indeed, leptin has been seen for some time as a key to understanding weight control, has been implicated in various concepts like the “set point” and is linked to numerous rather complex systems. What may be happening here is that insulin and leptin levels act one way in the sedentary person and a slightly different way in the active person.

I’m going the gym.

Oh, wait, OK, I’ll finish this blog post first.

Here’s what the authors say about the study:

The hypothalamus is a brain region that gathers information on the body’s nutritional status and governs the release of multiple metabolic signaling molecules such as insulin and leptin to maintain homeostasis. Overeating and obesity are associated with insulin and leptin resistance in the hypothalamus, and recent studies provide an intriguing link between inflammation and dysfunction of hypothalamic insulin and leptin signaling through activation of IKKβ, a key player in immune response, and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. This means that strategies to reduce the aberrant activation of inflammatory signaling in the hypothalamus are of great interest to improve the central insulin and leptin action and prevent or treat related metabolic diseases. Using a combination of pharmacological, genetic, and physiological approaches, our study indicates that physical activity reorganizes the set point of nutritional balance through anti-inflammatory signaling mediated by interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-10 in the hypothalamus of rodents. Hence, IL-6 and IL-10 are important physiological contributors to the central insulin and leptin action mediated by exercise, linking it to hypothalamic ER stress and inflammation.

And, if you want to know a LOT more about this process, click here to download a PDF primer on Exercise and Hypothalamic ER Stress.

You can read the paper, published in PLoS Biology, here.

Ropelle, E., Flores, M., Cintra, D., Rocha, G., Pauli, J., Morari, J., de Souza, C., Moraes, J., Prada, P., Guadagnini, D., Marin, R., Oliveira, A., Augusto, T., Carvalho, H., Velloso, L., Saad, M., & Carvalheira, J. (2010). IL-6 and IL-10 Anti-Inflammatory Activity Links Exercise to Hypothalamic Insulin and Leptin Sensitivity through IKKβ and ER Stress Inhibition PLoS Biology, 8 (8) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000465