CO₂ in the atmosphere is making us fat by causing us to eat more food.
A 2007 study revealed that the pH value of blood – its acidity – affects nerve cells in the brain that regulate our appetite and metabolism: orexins.
This discovery led to the hypothesis that CO2 makes us fatter: We breathe more CO2, which makes our blood more acidic; which affects our brain, so we want to eat more.
In 2011, researchers Lars-Georg Hersoug. Anders Mikael Sjödin and Arne Astrup from the University of Copenhagen, started to test the hypothesis on humans.
At the university’s Department of Human Nutrition, they placed six young men in special climate rooms, where some of them were exposed to increased amounts of CO2. After seven hours, the men were allowed to eat as much as they liked.
This little pilot study showed that the men with the greater amount of CO2 in their blood ate six percent more food than the men who had been in climate rooms with a normal amount of CO₂.
Several studies have shown that you can lose weight in the mountains, where there is less oxygen in the air and where you expire more CO₂.
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