As my blog posts attest, I keep trying to figure out what in our diet is associated with weight loss. I've become much more precise about tracking exactly what brands and varieties of certain products I eat in the past year and looking at that in connection with weight fluctuations. Based on that, I have come to the sad conclusion that occasional arsenic contamination is likely the primary factor behind the unusual weight loss I have repeatedly (but not consistently) experienced in connection with sardines and kombu kelp. That is sad because no one wants to lose their hair from arsenic poisoning. I did actually experience unusual hair loss right after those sardine/kelp-associated episodes of weight loss.
Regional evidence from Bangladesh backs up a hypothesis that arsenic helps keep body weight down. They have a strikingly low overweight/obesity rate, and they also have widespread arsenic issues with their groundwater.
On the bright side, this arsenic hypothesis points to the possibility that the same enzyme(s) inhibited by arsenic can be inhibited in other ways in such a way as to help promote health weight loss. I'm looking specifically at PiT1 and PiT2 (members of the inorganic phosphate transporter family) right now. Arsenate inhibits PiT1, and phosphite (which we don't seem to hear much about despite all the phophate in our food and beverages) inhibits PiT1 and PiT2. So I will dig into phosphite compounds and food preparation methods that are more likely to create them. Foods high in phospholipids--such as sunflower seeds and other high-lecithin foods--do keep popping up in connection with leanness, and a combination of phospholipases C and D (enzymes found in some foods) will free phosphite from phospholipids.
