5 Comments

Happy birthday, Susan! You are smart and brave.

Expand full comment

Thanks Donna! As are you.

Expand full comment

This all sounds right based on my experience. Another way to reduce stress is to donate to a worthy cause, which instantly makes you feel better.

Expand full comment

What a journey. My heart goes out to you. Have you come across the fructose survival hypothesis, from Johnson and colleagues out of colorado? They've published 5 or 6 papers in the last couple of years, one of which aims to unify the theories of obesity. It's an interesting perspective - also considers certain mental health problems and their correlates with non-communicable disease.

I wrote about it in children here, but one thing that I'd love to see explored further is the threshold effects and the temporal component: https://open.substack.com/pub/guenbradbury/p/the-biggest-return-on-investment?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=4bpym1

Expand full comment

Thanks Guen. I've certainly heard about the idea that sugar is essentially toxic but I'm not convinced it applies to this specific situation. I have a follow-up essay coming that addresses the fact that there is a rise in anxiety and depression in western nations that correlates with the rise in obesity, and especially so for children.

One of my concerns is that researchers are not looking at individual variation in thyroid hormone metabolism as I discussed here (in case you missed it). https://susancrockford.substack.com/p/hypothyroidism-our-evolutionary-legacy

For example, don't forget that TH controls cellular and mitochondrial function, including the metabolism of fructose. I think advancement will come when we are able to fully integrate our knowledge of complex hormone systems with brain function and food metabolism.

Expand full comment