- Published:: 2016-04-07 - [I] Useful for [[Misaligned Incentives]] ## Highlights ### q1 > Far from being an inert dumping ground for excess calories, fat tissue operates as a reserve energy supply for the body. Its calories are called upon when glucose is running low – that is, between meals, or during fasts and famines. Fat takes instruction from insulin, the hormone responsible for regulating blood sugar. Refined carbohydrates break down at speed into glucose in the blood, prompting the pancreas to produce insulin. When insulin levels rise, fat tissue gets a signal to suck energy out of the blood, and to stop releasing it. So when insulin stays high for unnaturally long, a person gains weight, gets hungrier, and feels fatigued. Then we blame them for it. But, as Gary Taubes puts it, obese people are not fat because they are overeating and sedentary – they are overeating and sedentary because they are fat, or getting fatter. - [View Highlight](https://theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin?__readwiseLocation=0%2F83%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F8%2F0%2F0%2F8%3A0%2C0%2F83%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F8%2F0%2F0%2F8%3A849#:~:text=Far%20from%20being%20an%20inert%2Care%20fat%2C%20or%20getting%20fatter.)