As much as half of our home energy use comes from climate control. Heating and cooling uses more energy than any other single application of energy in America. Well it turns out that all that energy we use to heat and cool our houses is energy that we aren't using to heat and cool our bodies, and it's making us fatter. That's right, being hot or cool is somewhat uncomfortable and stressful for our bodies which, in turn, have to do things to increase or decrease body temperature. The extremes, of course, produce shivering and sweating, but milder energy use occurs as well as we move above or below 72 degrees. Studies have shown that women who live in 80 degree chambers burn almost 250 more calories per day at rest than women in 70 degree chambers. Heat further increases weight loss by suppressing appetites and by making you less guilty about all the energy you're wasting (I threw that last one in there myself.) Independent from the Climate Control's effects on obesity, industrial chemicals such as pesticides, dyes, perfumes, flavorings and plastics have been shown to significantly increase the body mass of mice in extremely small quantities. And people who eat fish contaminated with PCBs have been shown to be heavier than those who did not. Many of these industrial chemicals are endocrine blockers that confuse body chemistry and increase storage of fats. Most of these tidbits were found in a NewScientist
Thanks for Link & Summary www.ecogeek.org ;-)
