Scientists uncover a clue that could hint at why we regain weight after diets

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Scientists uncover a clue that could hint at why we regain weight after diets 

A chemical mechanism may cause weight regain by creating a “memory” of obesity in fat cells, a study suggests.

Researchers have long puzzled over why people who diet or take weight-loss drugs are quick to regain weight after they stop. A new study has proposed a potential clue: a chemical mechanism that may encourage fat cells to continue making a hormone that makes us hungry and create a “memory” of obesity even after weight loss. 

Scientists caution that the study’s evidence involves mice and is not proof of the mechanisms that explains weight regain. But it’s a step forward in a growing understanding of the cellular functions and changes underlying obesity, experts said. Recent studies have challenged the idea that inactivity is the main cause of obesity and identified other genetic factors, such as impaired GLP-1 production, associated with some types of obesity. 

As weight-loss drugs become more popular, understanding why their effects can wear off so quickly once people stop taking the medications is becoming more important, the study’s authors said. Beyond losing weight, the researchers said, treating obesity could require tackling a “biological memory” in our cells.

“If we understand where that memory is coming from, maybe eventually we’ll have some way to stop that,” said Seth Field, a professor of medicine in endocrinology at Case Western Reserve University and an author of the study published September in Cell Reports.

The idea that cells can carry a memory of obesity is not newbut researchers are still trying to understand the mechanisms of how it influences weight regain. Through epigenetics, scientists are examining how external factors can affect how our cells behave by altering chemical markers which can turn genes — and certain cellular functions — on and off.

A study in 2024 examined how obesity can cause epigenetic changes. It suggested that fat cells in both humans and mice retain lasting epigenetic changes after weight loss.

Mice with these cellular differences quickly regained weight, but researchers did not have a definitive answer to explain why.

The September study focused on epigenetic changes that affect the production of an appetite-stimulating hormone, asprosin. Researchers found that mice that were made to gain weight gained high levels of asprosin that lingered even after they lost weight. 

“Their hunger is stuck in the on position,” said Atul Chopra, an associate professor of medicine and genetics and genomics at Case Western Reserve University and an author of the study. 

The reason asprosin lingers in the body could be tied to the way a chemical messenger acts on fat cells, according to Chopra’s team. The chemical, TGF-β1, is associated with inflammation and elevated during obesity. It stimulates the production of asprosin.

TGF-β1 normally decays in minutes, but researchers discovered that its appetite-stimulating effect can last for much longer. A student in Chopra’s lab mistakenly left fat cells previously treated with TGF-β1 in an incubator; two weeks later, the cells still had elevated levels of asprosin.

When researchers injected TGF-β1 into mice, the mice still displayed elevated levels of asprosin weeks later, according to the study. Follow-up tests found that mice fed high fat diets, which naturally increased their TGF-β1 and asprosin levels, retained high asprosin levels even after losing weight.

“This mouse has a memory of prior obesity,” Chopra said. “‘I used to be obese. I’m not obese anymore, but I’d like to go back to that body weight.’”

It’s too early to apply the work conducted on mice to people. But Chopra said the role of TGF-β1 could provide a target for drug development and further research for humans.

“People who have lost a bunch of weight, look at their asprosin levels in their blood, and are they stuck in the ‘on’ position, just like we found in mice?” Chopra said. “And subsequently, can we wipe the memory [of the cells with elevated asprosin]?”

Claude Bouchard, a professor emeritus at Louisiana State University and a longtime researcher in genetics and obesity, praised the study, but added that hundreds of genetic traits have been associated with risk factors for obesity and more research would be needed to determine how important TGF-β1 is in humans.

“In most cases, it’s a constellation of those [genetic] traits that determine your risk,” Bouchard said.

Chopra said that, for now, the main takeaway for patients and physicians from obesity research should be that managing the condition is not just a matter of willpower or personal behavior.

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How Student Journalists Broke the ‘Cornell Seven’ Case

The Cut: ” An explosive new lawsuit alleging that seven Chi Phi fraternity brothers gang-raped a student two years ago and that Cornell University did little to protect her in the aftermath rocked life on campus this month. 

The case, now known as “The Cornell Seven,” has also broken containment, quickly becoming a national issue over the weekend. Students at The Cornell Daily Sun have been there covering every beat of the story. Senior editor Cereese Qusba spent months reporting on the case before breaking the news of the lawsuit on September 18. “What happened to me was horrific and deeply disturbing,” the plaintiff, who is only identified in court records as Jane Doe, told the Sun exclusively. 

“Almost two years later, I still carry the weight of its impact every day and night.” For the past two weeks, reporters at the student paper have been relentlessly chasing follow-ups, from the administration’s response to the district attorney’s office reopening its criminal investigation and the larger fallout in Ithaca. The Sun also published a blistering editorial, printing the names of the accused men and taking the university to task for its lack of transparency. 

Throughout it all, the team has approached this case with care and moral clarity. “We refuse for this victim to be reduced to just another story. Cornell has failed to protect its students. Cornell has failed to address the growing issue of sexual assault on campus with its pathetic task force,” the board wrote. 

“Cornell has failed the student allegedly raped by those seven men at Chi Phi in October 2024. Cornell has failed her. Cornell has failed us.” On Monday afternoon, I called up Qusba and editor-in-chief Sophia Dasser to talk about their work, how the editorial came together, and what’s next in their reporting…”

See also the New York Times [no paywall]: The student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, covered the allegations of rape at a fraternity house since they were first made in 2024 and led the reporting on the case.

Trump Administration Prepares to Ask Tax Filers if They Are US Citizens

We will give Trump this: He didn’t create the hatred, bigotry, selfishness and cruelty in America.
He just gave it permission to stop fucking whispering.

How ProPublica Reporters Became Private School Owners in 24 Hours 

Tax does not pay for government spending. So what is it for?

What is tax really for? Most people assume that governments need to collect tax before they can spend. But for a government like that of the UK, which issues its own currency, that is not how the monetary system works.

The UK government creates new money when it spends. Tax then takes money back out of the economy. That means we need to think very differently about why taxation exists.

In this video, I explain six reasons why we need tax.

Tax gives the pound its value because people need pounds to settle their tax liabilities.

Tax helps control inflation by withdrawing spending power from the economy.

It can reduce inequality by redistributing income and wealth.

It can change prices to discourage harmful activities and encourage socially useful ones.

Fair taxation can strengthen democracy by reinforcing the obligations we share as members of society.

And tax is one of the government's most important tools for steering the economy.

Understanding this changes the way we think about government spending, deficits, inflation and economic policy.

Tax is not simply the government's piggy bank. It is one of the most powerful economic policy tools we have.

This video is part of my Understanding Economics series, explaining economics as it actually operates in the world around us...

Read the full article…

 Trump Administration Prepares to Ask Tax Filers if They Are U.S. Citizens 

The new question, included on a draft version of the primary tax form, comes as part of an anti-immigrant turn at an agency that long prioritized tax administration

The Trump administration is preparing to add a question on next year’s tax returns asking people whether they are a citizen or legally authorized to work in the United States, expanding an attempt to cut tax refunds for immigrants or push them out of the tax system entirely.

In a draft version of Form 1040, the primary tax form, the Internal Revenue Service this month included a new section that asks filers to check a box “Yes” or “No” to answer the question: “At the time you file your return, are you, and your spouse if filing jointly, a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, or an alien lawfully authorized to work in the U.S.?”

The additional question comes as part of what the Trump administration has said is an effort to prevent undocumented immigrants from receiving federal tax benefits. But many tax credits require recipients to have valid Social Security numbers, meaning previous tax forms already screened undocumented immigrants from receiving them. That fact has led several tax and immigration experts to conclude that the question is simply intended to scare undocumented immigrants out of filing their taxes at all.

That fear first emerged last year, when the I.R.S. shared addresses it had on file for roughly 47,000 people with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Federal law closely guards access to information submitted on tax returns, and several courts have blocked the I.R.S. from sharing bulk data with ICE. Still, even if the I.R.S. may not be able to legally do so, the addition of the citizenship question could reawaken concerns about the agency using its vast stores of information to help detain or deport people.

Undocumented immigrants pay tens of billions in combined federal income, payroll and local taxes every year. Since they do not have valid Social Security numbers, undocumented immigrants are among the people who can use a separate nine-digit code called an individual taxpayer identification number to file their taxes. The I.R.S. has not in recent history asked taxpayers about their immigration status, and has instead sought to encourage every U.S. resident to file their taxes.

“The I.R.S. doesn’t need this information to administer the tax law,” said Nina Olson, a former I.R.S. official and the executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, which sued the I.R.S. over its previous data sharing with ICE. “The only reason you have that attestation is to deter people.”

At the same time, the Treasury Department is moving forward with a push to cut off immigrants with legal status from receiving the full value of several tax credits. The administration has said those new rules are targeted at “illegal aliens,” but in reality they would affect recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, as well as immigrants on work visas, among others.

The question on tax forms and the stricter eligibility rules are the latest signs that the I.R.S. has become a tool in the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda, an important shift for an agency that for decades was narrowly focused on collecting taxes. Tax preparers and lawyers said the Trump administration’s new tax credit rules are stricter than the eligibility rules approved by Congress and threaten to create confusion for millions of tax filers next year.

President Trump has in recent months also sought to build a database of U.S. citizens, and he has proposed excluding noncitizens without green cards from the census. The new tax return question would most likely not be able to feed into those other efforts, though, because of taxpayer privacy laws. The proposed changes would probably draw legal challenges.

The I.R.S. did not respond to a request for comment. A representative of the Treasury Department said the citizenship question on tax forms would “provide the I.R.S. important and necessary information to help ensure tax benefits go where the law directs” without addressing specific questions about the changes.

“That rationale doesn’t hold water,” said Brandon DeBot, a senior attorney adviser at New York University’s Tax Law Center. “The government already has all the information it needs for whether someone is eligible for a tax credit.”

The overall effort began to take shape in August, when the Treasury Department proposed regulations outlining the new restrictions for four refundable tax credits: the earned-income tax credit, the child tax credit, the adoption tax credit and the American Opportunity tax credit, which covers education costs. In general, tax credits offset the amount of tax that someone owes, but refundable tax credits can go further, providing a payment to a filer that is larger than the balance of owed tax.

This means refundable tax credits can effectively serve as cash support to poor Americans who do not make enough money to owe much income tax. (Here is a simplified example: Someone who receives a $1,000 refundable tax credit, but owes only $200 in tax, can still receive the remaining $800 in tax credit as a payment.)

The Treasury regulations would, for the first time, define the money received through the tax credits — the amount beyond the tax owed — as a “federal public benefit.” That would subject this portion of the tax credit to a set of eligibility requirements laid out in a separate 1996 law, rather than the rules Congress wrote for the tax credits specifically

Under tax laws passed by Congress, three of the four credits are already limited to people with work-authorized Social Security numbers, while the adoption credit is available to a broader pool. The proposed regulations would, instead, require recipients to be a “qualified alien” under the terms of the 1996 law, called the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.

Several categories of immigrants are authorized to work — and therefore have Social Security numbers — but do not count as “qualified aliens” under that law. Beyond DACA recipients and people with work visas, residents with student visas or temporary protected status would no longer be able to receive the full amount of the tax credits because they are not “qualified aliens.”

“This isn’t about undocumented immigrants, no matter how much they advertise it as such,” said Margot Crandall-Hollick, a researcher at the Tax Policy Center, a think tank. “This is about going after people who are allowed to be here and allowed to work here.”

The additional question on Form 1040 asks only if someone is a citizen, a U.S. national or authorized to work — and not whether the filer is a “qualified alien,” meaning that the answer would not be relevant to enforcing the Treasury’s new rules. Reflecting that, the I.R.S. released a draft of a separate additional form that directly asks if someone is a “qualified alien.”

“It’s a weird duplicate question,” Richard Pon, a certified public accountant in California, said of the Form 1040 change. “‘Qualified alien’ is different from the question that’s on the 1040. Why would they even ask that question about citizenship? I can’t think of any compliance reason for that.”

Those hoping to receive the full value of the tax credits will now have to know whether their immigration status aligns with the complicated definition of “qualified alien.” That added complexity could cause some people who are in fact “qualified aliens,” like green card holders, to not claim the full value of the tax credits. The Treasury regulations warn of penalties for people who fill out the forms incorrectly, a potential deterrent for uncertain filers.

“The design of these questions is to confuse and scare the people. Tax preparers are completely unprepared to figure out whether someone is a qualified immigrant,” Sarah Krieger, senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center. “People are just going to be chilled or deterred from filing their taxes or claiming credits they’re eligible for.”

Prague’s Lennon Wall began as a symbol of resistance to Communist rule

 “Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope” 

~ Hal Lindsey

Prague’s Lennon Wall began as a symbol of resistance to Communist rule and remains a canvas for freedom & political expression. One section caught my eye: Czechs depicted as a cow caught between East and West — Putin pulling the tail, Trump milking the cow, all against the colors of the Czech flag.

Prague’s Lennon Wall began as a symbol of resistance to Communist rule 

They built a business empire that cashes in on veterans. It's made millions

 Former ABC broadcaster Margaret Throsby is facing a long road to recovery after breaking several bones and suffering extensive head injuries in an e-bike collision with two teenagers riding a “fat bike” along a popular coastal walking track in the Illawarra region.

The 84-year-old remained in hospital on Thursday, almost one week after she was struck by the rider and passenger while on her regular morning walk in Bulli. She was thrown to the path after colliding with the e-bike, breaking her hip and thumb and bleeding extensively from her head. Doctors suspect she had broken another bone in her hand, which will be confirmed by x-rays this week.

‘She’s in a lot of pain’: ABC legend Margaret Throsby confronts new injuries after e-bike collision

The Gap Between the Rich and the Very, Very Rich Is Getting Wider

The 0.1% holds about 15% of the nation’s total wealth, with average household wealth of over $200 million each

The ultrawealthy aren’t just pulling away from average Americans. Buoyed by a stock-market boom that has added trillions of dollars to their net worth, the extremely rich are even pulling away from other rich Americans.

The top 0.1% wealthiest Americans have seen their total wealth more than double since the end of 2019, according to new data from the Federal Reserve. The year the pandemic started was when the ultrawealthy began to pull away from other rich groups, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Fed data.

In dollar terms, the very richest Americans have gained a total of $14.5 trillion in wealth over that period, with most of that—about $10 trillion—coming from gains in stocks and mutual funds, according to the Fed data, which runs through the end of June.

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The 0.1% now control about $28 trillion, or about 15% of the nation’s total wealth, which amounts to nearly $186 trillion. The average wealth for a household in this group is more than $200 million. 

As of 2022, the minimum for the top 0.1% was $45.8 million, according to the most detailed data available from the Fed. With wealth among the group up by roughly 50% since then, that threshold is much higher now.

The people who fall into this group aren’t usually traditional salaried workers. Rather, they are much more likely to be the owner of a bunch of car dealerships or an heir living off investment income.

The ultrawealthy’s recent gains from the stock market dwarf the total wealth of the bottom 50% of all Americans, which is about $4 trillion. That bottom group has actually seen their wealth rise more than any other group on a percentage basis, thanks to a combination of rising home values and pandemic-era government relief that swelled bank accounts and helped pay down debt. Nevertheless, the bottom half’s share of total wealth, at an average of about $63,000 a household, comes to just 2.3% of the nation’s total wealth. The average household in the top 0.1% holds over 3,000 times as much wealth as a bottom-half household does. 

In the top 0.1% by wealth, 37% earn most of their income from businesses, and 26% derive it from capital gains, according to an analysis of Fed data from economics professors Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick for their recent book “The Everywhere Millionaire.” Only 10% derived most of their income from wages and salaries.

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The biggest factor in this phenomenon is that wealthy people simply own a lot of stocks. In the year ended June 30, when the S&P 500 gained 21%, the top 0.1% received nearly $4 trillion of new wealth from the market.

The roughly 137,000 households who make up the nation’s top 0.1% had already become richer in comparison to everyone else in recent decades, thanks to higher incomes and lower tax rates. Now the stock-market boom, driven by strong corporate earnings and highflying tech stocks, is powering their wealth even further.

By comparison, the rest of the top 10% of richest Americans gained $38.2 trillion in wealth over the same period, but it was split among nearly a hundred times as many households.

Americans more broadly have become richer over time, as rising wages for college-educated workers, entrepreneurship and the stock market have lifted wealth for millions of Americans. The housing market has also increased the wealth of Americans who own homes.

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Yet many others have been locked out of prosperity, and entrenched inflation is pressuring even those with six-figure salaries. Growing wealth at the very top has become a political flashpoint, helping fuel the rise of Democratic socialist politicians such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Wealth is measured as a household’s assets, like stocks and home equity, minus their liabilities, like mortgages and credit-card debt.

“The stock market’s ripping, and so if you’re in the stock market more, it has been really great,” said Zwick.

Some wealthy people borrow against their booming stock portfolios to fund their lifestyle. But even investors who keep their money in the market often spend more when stocks go up, because they feel good about their personal finances, a phenomenon economists call “the wealth effect.”