A Toxic Side of Weight Loss: Pollutants may slow body’s metabolism
By Carrie Lock
Weight loss isn’t only frustrating, it’s also complicated. Scientists expect a person’s metabolism to slow as he or she loses weight, but there’s sometimes more of a drop than the equations predict. Researchers call this excessive slowdown “adaptive thermogenesis,” although they don’t fully understand why the body’s internal furnace sometimes changes efficiency in what seems to be an effort to minimize weight loss.
Now, researchers propose that the largest contributor to adaptive thermogenesis is increased concentrations of pollutants in the blood, rather than changes that weight loss seems to trigger in the dieter’s hormones. Many toxic industrial chemicals, such as organochlorines, are stored in fat cells and escape into the bloodstream when those cells shrink during weight loss.