"Baby's First Diet Pill" in NY Times

[weasel!]

Check it out. This appears in tomorrow's New York Times Magazine. By the way, have any of these people ever heard of breastfeeding?

Baby’s First Diet Pill
By ANNIE MURPHY PAUL
Published: August 5, 2007

Why do people get fat? We habitually divide the causes of obesity into two categories: genetic predisposition (having lots of overweight relatives) and lifestyle choices (eating too many chips or even, according to a recent study, having fat friends). A new field called developmental programming maintains a third possibility: that obesity, like many aspects of our physiology, can be traced to the months just before and after birth, when the brain and other organs are still fine-tuning themselves.
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Amy Arbus

This early adjusting appears to be extensive. The “thermal environment” a young child encounters — how hot it is at home — may determine the number of active sweat glands he’ll have for the rest of his life. The flow of stress hormones from a pregnant woman to her fetus can “program” the developing brain, making it more reactive to stress in infancy (and perhaps even adulthood). Appetite and metabolism are also influenced during this period, the theory goes, and once set are exceedingly difficult to change. The evolutionary advantage of such a mechanism is clear: If a fetus or newborn senses he is entering a world of scarcity, for example, he’d better prepare himself to hang on to every calorie.

But what if it is possible to change the settings? Michael Cawthorne, director of metabolic research at the Clore Laboratory at Britain’s University of Buckingham, argues that if we act early enough, we may be able to program babies’ metabolisms to provide permanent resistance to excess pounds. He and his colleagues are trying to develop a baby formula with an astonishing property: to turn newborns into those enviable people who can eat what they want without getting fat.

As far-fetched as this sounds — another British biochemist has called it “science fiction” — it is based on emerging knowledge about how appetite and metabolism are regulated. The hormone leptin appears to act very early in life to program the hypothalamus, a gland in the brain that helps keep food intake and energy expenditure in balance. By influencing the set points at which the hypothalamus suppresses hunger and stimulates calorie-burning activity, leptin may increase the body’s long-term tendency to use up calories rather than conserve them as fat.

Cawthorne would supplement infants’ formula with leptin during the period in which their metabolisms are being calibrated. He speculates that this kind of treatment “will help people cope better with an abundant food environment.” Experiments with animals provide support. A study led by Cawthorne’s associate Claire Stocker found that rat mothers given leptin during pregnancy and lactation produced offspring that were resistant to obesity. “The science is too immature to apply to humans yet,” says Sebastien Bouret, a developmental-programming expert at the Saban Research Institute of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, “but it’s a very promising field of research.”

Ultimately, application to humans is the whole idea, but much remains to be worked out: the safety of treatment with leptin, the amount and timing of the dose, the long-term evaluation of its effects. Although Cawthorne and Stocker are seeking patents in a number of countries, including the United States, they say it will be years before any product reaches the shelves. Still, the very idea of an “anti-obesity baby formula” has raised eyebrows among many scientists.

Some researchers simply doubt that it will succeed. What works in rats may not work in people. More troubling are the unknown consequences for the developing brain: leptin may be involved in learning and memory as well as appetite and metabolism, and the effects of a formula like Cawthorne’s might not show up for decades. “I’d be really hesitant to feed formula changed in this way to my own kid,” says Susan Roberts, chief of the Energy Metabolism Laboratory at Tufts University. “It just makes my breath short to think of what such an intervention might do.” And there is something disturbing in the idea of permanently altering children’s physiology.

“How is it different from giving children vaccinations to prevent infectious disease?” Cawthorne responds. “Obesity is a disease with life-or-death consequences. We need to do something about it, and it’s pretty obvious that what we’re doing isn’t working.”

The deep concern, even desperation, expressed by Cawthorne and other obesity researchers is perhaps the most unsettling development of all. Remaking the age-old survival mechanisms of the human body appears, to some, more feasible than altering the environment humans have created. Oceans of soda, mountains of baked goods and sparkling glaciers of ice cream are now a permanent part of our landscape, and it may be easier to change us than them.

Annie Murphy Paul last wrote for the magazine about how the choice of marriage partners influences the gap between rich and poor.

[jezzie]

What works in rats may not work in people. More troubling are the unknown consequences
for the developing brain: leptin may be involved in learning and memory as well as appetite and metabolism, and the effects of a formula like Cawthorne’s might not show up for decades.

That was like reading a Frankenstein-type story.

It's not nice to fool Mother Nature.

[Diana]

Wow!!!

[sbarr]

Best bet - eat clean while pregnant (thereby having a fetus who has only consumed healthy foods), eat clean while breastfeeding, thereby having a baby who indirectly consumes healthy food, keep the caffeine and stress low, same theory.

Hard to separate nature and nurture, also. The mommy who eats like crap when she's pregnant will probably serve to be the same role model raising the child. Fat parents, fat children - definitely harder to isolate, whether it's inherited or learned behavior - probably both!

We're actually trying to get pregnant, despite my age, and truth be told - I will become the "Fawn poster child" because I am toying with the idea that what we consume during pregnancy and early life set the stage for attitudes and tastes for life.

Oh, I'm sure there are exceptions - fat parents, skinny kids - mom loves spinach, kids hate it. But, I'm gearing myself to be convinced that by eating clean before and during and after, then I'm doing the absolute best by injecting "nature" and "nurturing" learned behavior and tastes.

[homestretch]

Don't mess with mother nature!

[LadyJulieAnn]

We have enough issues with some parents providing a loving and safe environment for their kids. I think obesity prevention is the least of our problems these days.

[sbarr]

Agreed - we don't need to make designer children by giving them drugs.

[fawn]

The farther ahead we think we are....the farther behind we actually fall.

"nature" is a word to be respected.

[Momto2boysNJ]

sbarr, you are on to something. Children mimic what they see. You drink water, they drink water, you eat veggies, they eat veggies, etc.

[GardenGirl639]

Scary, scary stuff!

IMHO, babies are born with a desire to eat when hungry and stop when full. It's when we start messing with these natural instincts that we get in trouble. Ever try making a baby breastfeed longer or finish that bottle....they don't like it. However, you do it often enough or start adding things to the bottle with the formula and you start to shut down those instincts.

Being overweight most of my life and seeing how my overweight parents reacted emotionally to food and knowing how I emotionally reacted to food, I was terrified when I got pregnant the first time that I was going to "inflict" this same "obsession" onto my kids. I read tons of books (it was before the internet ). The best information that I could find was to feed on demand (whether breastfed or bottle fed) and to limit sugar for at least the first year of life, if not longer.

I'm happy to say that I have three naturally thin children who eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full....even if they are in the middle of a giant ice cream sunday.

I think that the other thing that contributes to overweight kids is the huge amount of sugary drinks that they are being given. We just went on a vacation with my dh's family...lots of cousins. You really get to see how other people feed their kids when you live with them for a week. The kids all have similiar genetics being in the same family and yet you could see differences in weight. The kids with the biggest problems were the ones drinking all the sugary drinks and pop constantly. It made me sad.

Also, could this formula even be useful? How many people take "diet pills" and use that as an excuse to eat what ever they want? Or order the diet coke with the Big Mac and fries? Or, going a little further, in the case of bulemia, use purging in order to get rid of the binge. Would parents think, "Oh, we used this formula, so I don't need to worry about what I'm feeding my kids. They won't get fat anyway?"

Okay, I guess I didn't realize that kid's nutrition was a "soapbox" issue for me and now I'll get off.

[CurveControl]

Originally Posted by sbarr

Best bet - eat clean while pregnant (thereby having a fetus who has only consumed healthy foods), eat clean while breastfeeding, thereby having a baby who indirectly consumes healthy food, keep the caffeine and stress low, same theory.

Hard to separate nature and nurture, also. The mommy who eats like crap when she's pregnant will probably serve to be the same role model raising the child. Fat parents, fat children - definitely harder to isolate, whether it's inherited or learned behavior - probably both!

We're actually trying to get pregnant, despite my age, and truth be told - I will become the "Fawn poster child" because I am toying with the idea that what we consume during pregnancy and early life set the stage for attitudes and tastes for life.

Oh, I'm sure there are exceptions - fat parents, skinny kids - mom loves spinach, kids hate it. But, I'm gearing myself to be convinced that by eating clean before and during and after, then I'm doing the absolute best by injecting "nature" and "nurturing" learned behavior and tastes.

Whay she said.

[Yellobrix]

I am just FLOORED! Seriously, what ARE these people thinking??? Then, I catch myself and I think, well, what would I be surprised? The most recent additions to baby formula come from algae and mud.

http://www.naba-breastfeeding.org/im...%20article.pdf

Honestly, how long can be be until humanity gets what it has requested in the way of dire consequences?