The FastDay Forum

@peebles. I saw this a while back on set point theory - you might find this interesting, although I think you have already figured out the answer to the question yourself. The hypothesis is that there are a smorgasbord of factors at play. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2253845

[carorees]

Hi @peebles

This is what I've got on set point theory in my little collection of interesting papers.

It seems that settling point rather than set point theory has more evidence:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 011.7/full

The composition of the fuel mix oxidized and hence the average RQ are influenced by the size of the body's substrate reserves. The steady state of weight maintenance thus tends to become established for a particular body composition in a given individual living under a particular set of circumstances. This corresponds to a “settling point” (20). Such a view accommodates the fact that circumstances cause weight stability to occur for various degrees of adiposity. Thus it seems to fit reality much better than the concept of a “set point” or “ponderostat” (21) often invoked to explain weight stability. In fact, such a concept would seem to be utterly inconsistent with the rise in the preponderance of obesity, since set-points would have to be seen as preventing the impact of changing circumstances. It has sometimes been considered that “set-points” are reset for different conditions, but in effect this argument reduces the set-point phenomenon to a settling point.

And then there's these
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21117971
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21173874
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3209643/

There is quite a bit of stuff on set points in genetically obese rats and mice, which a search of PubMed will reveal.