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Zestfullyclean87 t1_j2s08br wrote

Reply to comment by atsugnam in A study on obese patients suggests the gut microbiome affects obesity levels. Microbial diversity decreased in obese subjects, and the reduction trend was correlated with the severity of obesity. by glawgii

No, I read what you said, but the problem is, you’re misinterpreting how calorie needs work.

It isn’t the smaller person doesn’t absorb the calories. It’s that they have a lower calorie need, to maintain their size.

If a smaller person is eating the same number of calories as an obese person (assuming that other factors such as height, sex, and age, and activity levels are the same) then you would have to explain by what mechanism the lean person isn’t storing energy.

Because energy that’s inputted, but not used, doesn’t just disappear. This is where your scientific understanding is falling short - energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transferred. and if it’s not transferred in the body by way of activity, it has to be stored as fat. Fat is stored energy.

So no… lean people and obese people do not consume the same calorie amounts. Not unless the lean person is extremely active, but activity is a lot less relevant in determining one’s size, than caloric intake

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Zout t1_j2t398g wrote

You might have read what he said, but it seems to me you didn't process it. He literally says that obese people excrete less calories, so this is the mechanism you're asking for. Leaner people don't get all the energy out of the food and into the body.

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atsugnam t1_j2txp6d wrote

Ok, again, go and read the study.

They measured the calories dumped in the fecal waste excreted following a fixed calorie intake.

Lean people dumped more calories out per calorie in, their gut didn’t absorb as much of the intake as an obese person did. For the same given intake of calories.

This isn’t about maintaining mass, this is about physically absorbing more of the energy in a given parcel of food.

You’re so fixated on how you think the human body works you aren’t even reading what is in the study.

To couch it in your own words - it’s physics: why is it when a lean person eats a given calorie input do they excrete more calories out in there faeces than an obese person for the same input. How does a lean person get the same calorie absorption when more of the energy went into the toilet?

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