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Physician looks at what keeps people slim

With a grant to study thin people, an endocrinologist seeks an answer to why most Americans are overweight.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, amednews staff. March 8, 2004.

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Like many scientists studying obesity, Dan Bessesen, MD, spent years overfeeding rats and putting them on diets in an effort to gain insights into what makes humans gain and lose weight.

What fascinated the chief of endocrinology at Denver Health Medical Center and associate professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, however, were the rats who always seemed to maintain their figures, no matter what.

Now, he's turned his attention to people who seem to do the same. With National Institutes of Health support to the tune of $1 million over the next five years, he will be studying the metabolism, genetics and psyche of the people who seem to always stay skinny.

Question: What is the $1 million NIH grant actually for?

Answer: We are doing a longitudinal, prospective study on factors that predict weight gain or the prevention of weight gain. We're interested in how people respond to brief periods of overfeeding, particularly people who remained thin over time in our environment. How do they do that, especially if they overeat?

We probably all overeat periodically, and yet some people overeat and never seem to gain weight.

Q: Why look at thin people, since fat people seem to have the problem?

A: In the past, when I studied obesity, the thin rats were just a control group. But what I realized was that regaining energy balance following a period of overfeeding is a very dynamic process. Obesity is the more passive process. An animal or person overfeeding -- if they don't respond to that overfeeding, if nothing changes -- then they just keep gaining weight.