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How much of that central heating has contributed to obesity, I wonder?

Also, no need to buy the book, it's free! https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/DP127_1984_with-foreword_web.pdf

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author

Oi, Oi, don't you go nicking my ideas now Matey.

Tho' TBF, I'd love to see real numbers. Intuitively I think it's right - ch causes obesity. We're mammales, heat regulation etc. But actual numbers - first from biology side, then from spread of obesity compared to c heating. Perhaps cross country comparisons?

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Anthony Warner says that house temperatures rose from 13c to 18c between 1970 and 2000, which "can result in a decreased metabolic rate of around 170 calories a day". That would be a big difference. However, he says you'd expect warmer climates to be strongly associated with obesity if it was a major factor, which they aren't.

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IIRR the fattest country in the world is Tonga.

I'm not sure they spend much on central heating.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38769396/

Personally I think microbiome changes are responsible for recent obesity.

difluoromethylarginine seems a lot lot cheaper than ozempic, so maybe once the population twig the shares will fall.

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The wealthy home counties village where I now live only got mains water in the 1930s - before that you had to use water from a 'well' which was really rain water captured from the roof and fed into an underground tank. If you wanted to drink it, you needed to boil it (for tea); or drink (small) beer instead. Where I grew up, in rural Lancs in the 60s, we were 'posh' because our toilet was inside the house, but my aunt and uncle had an outside loo that was a metal tank containing disinfectant, emptied by the council once a fortnight.

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I sometimes miss the pretty patterns the ice made on the bedroom windows when I was a child.

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author

Indeed - and on the inside of the pane as well....

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(Yorkshireman)

In 1982 we had two open fires and nothing else. Had to dig through the snow to get the coal(ite) in....

(/Yorkshireman)

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