Although dieting and exercising are extraordinarily popular in the industrialized world, more than half of healthcare professionals don’t know how fat leaves the body when we get rid of unwanted pounds, according to researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia. A shocking number of physicians, nutritionists, and physical trainers thought that during weight loss, fat becomes energy. Of course, people looking to lose weight are not particularly bothered by the exact physical process that takes place to make them skinnier as long they can see good results. If you are looking for an alternative method of losing weight compared to constant dieting and exercising, then why not have a look at somewhere like https://www.ice-aesthetic.co.uk so that you can learn more about cryolipolysis, a process that uses controlled freezing to help patients lose weight.
“There is surprising ignorance and confusion about the metabolic process of weight loss,” remarks Prof. Andrew Brown, who directs the biotechnology and biomolecular sciences school at UNSW (per ScienceDaily).
Breathe out to lose weight?
The principal investigator for the research, Ruben Meerman, explains that the majority of the fat cell mass becomes carbon dioxide and is gradually exhaled.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal in December, examined the basic molecular processes involved in fat metabolism. Essentially, in order for a person to lose 22 pounds of fat, they would have to breathe in 64 pounds of oxygen. The fat itself would be converted into 62 pounds of carbon dioxide and 24 pounds of water.
Prof. Meerman developed a fascination for weight loss biochemistry from his own fitness efforts. He shed 33 pounds in 2013 and was just curious what specifically happened to the fat. “After a self-directed, crash course in biochemistry,” he recounts, “I stumbled onto this amazing result.”
Prof. Meerman is concerned, in a world with an obesity epidemic, that what he now knows about the fat cell should be common knowledge among healthcare practitioners.
Misconceptions about how fat leaves the body
The researchers also surveyed 150 physicians, nutritionists, and physical trainers. Over half of them believed that fat became energy. Mr Meerman thinks part of the reason healthcare professionals think it might leave as energy is that weight loss is often discussed in terms of energy entering and exiting the body.
Some of the other survey participants believed that fat departed as stool or was refurbished into muscle.
When those who took the survey completed their responses, they were then given the correct information and could ask questions about fat metabolism. One of the two most popular questions was whether you can achieve fat cell metabolism more rapidly by breathing more rapidly; that is not the case but instead causes hyperventilation.
The second recurring question was whether the metabolism of a fat cell contributes to global warming. Meerman comments that he was disturbed by the global warming question because studies have proven that it results from “unlocking the ancient carbon atoms trapped underground in fossilised organisms” and has nothing to do with plant-based carbons.
Waiting to exhale
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