Slashdot Mirror
'Bad' Protein Linked to Numerous Health Problems
nbahi15 writes "A report in the July 13th edition of the online Journal of Clinical Investigation has linked the aP2 protein to asthma and several other diseases. It also suggests a connection between the metabolic and immune systems and these diseases." From a related Forbes article: "To study the effects of aP2, the researchers created genetically engineered mice that could not produce the protein. 'They're metabolic supermice,' Hotamisligil said. 'We cannot make them obese, diabetic or atherosclerotic. They don't develop fatty liver disease, and they don't develop asthma.' In mice with an animal model of asthma, the researchers found that aP2 regulated the infiltration of inflammatory molecules into the lungs."
If these proteins are so bad, and so easy to genetically engineer out, then from an evolutionary standpoint, why do we have these genes? Are we sure this protein doesn't have a big positive effect that we are not aware of?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
IF we follow your logic to it's conclusion, the human species is unfit for breeding. Let's see, every human dies, and will die at an earlier and earlier age as pollution decreases lifespan. So according to your own logic, you adocate suicide?!
:"Everyone wants to look good, but do you want the species to look good, and be incredibly lazy, eventually to the point of not even bothering to breed anymore."
In nature, the fit are the ones who declare themselves fit. If obese out of shape old men declare themselves more fit than young teenagers in their prime, then they are more fit. Do you see that animals actually have brains and decide among themselves who will be fit and when? Second animals are not rational, mice will decide their individual families are fit even if they arent. A family of fat mice working together might be more fit than a group of independent skinny mice. Lastly, fitness of the individual mouse has nothing to do with fitness of the individual species.
So, we could pick out the most beautiful atheletes, but if they have the smallest brains, well, thats going to limit the overall long term survival of the species.
Logical flaw in your arguement
This is an assumption, and what is the basis? If you view yourself as a physical body, and not a part of an ecosystem, then yes how your body looks matters, but obesity really has nothing to do with fitness as in the right environment being obese will keep you from starving and is physically attractive. The way to survive is intelligent selection, and most humans don't intelligently select. Natural selection isnt always intelligent. Intelligent selection is selecting the human most likely to improve the quality of the species itself, which almost no one does. Geeks get no love, and geniuses often get treated like somethings wrong with them. If the goal is the survival of the human species on a long term basis, it's intelligent selection. If the goal is survival of the fittest by todays standards, at the cost of tomorrow, well then mate with the most physically attractive person you can find, and in the future you will have a physically attractive yet most likely extinct human species. What you have to understand is, the long term survival of a species requires both the obese genes and the skinny genes, it requires both the lazy and hard working, it's the lazy who created the personal computer and increased productivity, otherwise we'd still be using typewriters. It's the lazy who invented the car, the bike and modern transportation. It's the lazy who invented the factory.
It could be that we are far too lazy, I will not say too much lazy is good, but there is a need for lazy. There is a need for hard labor. Most importantly, we have a shortage of intelligent minds, and a massive over supply of simple minds. Many people, are happy to just party through life, and expect life to get better, and then be surprised as each year progressively gets worse. If you want the key to survival of the fittest, mate with the people who make your life and other peoples lives better, you can be sure the offspring will carry that gene, otherwise you'll mate potentially with a person who will make your life and everyone around you miserable, and we already know where this can lead, a divorce perhaps? But it has a much greater impact on the lifespan of yourself as an individual, and on the lifespan of the species itself than people realize.
Proteins without useful functions tend not to stay around in populations. Chances are that this protein is important for something. Good candidates are fighting off various parasitic infections, or dealing with some kind of physiological stresses. Those conditions may not arise much in Western lifestyles, and hence getting rid of aP2 may be a good idea for us, but the protein almost certainly has some kind of useful function under some conditions.
Or, it is like the appendix, or some othe holdover. It could be something that once was useful somewhere in other species, and is now not harmful to a individual until later in life, after reproduction years are passed. However, I agree with you, it most likely performs some function that is now likely obselete in our lifestyle, however, I always try to spin more than one hypothesis on any given idea. (The question is, do all species in kindom Mamimalia have this protien?)
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
It's far too soon to draw any conclusions about this. Yes, removing it appears to have a positive effect on mice. Mice, as some people have to be reminded, are not people. Others have mentioned this protein may have a positive effect. It may. It may have a crucial effect in people. We've cured just about every type of known cancer in mice in about a few dozen different ways and yet the cures for these cancers in people continue to elude us.
Now that said, it doesn't mean that more research isn't in order. At some point, they'll want to create a drug that binds to or otherwise inhibits this protein and then probably test it on primates. Who knows, it may turn out to be a wonder cure for asthma and obesity and other things. But it's FAR too soon to draw that conclusion. There's a lot of amazing research going on out there, but this is simply one of many pieces of research that come up witht these kinds of positive results every week. Most don't pan out and until they have a drug for people, it's hardly worth mentioning on Slashdot. If Slashdot mentioned every one of these, that'd be all it did.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
It may be bad for us now.. but it apparently helps us more efficiently process foods and store energy (that is what fats are, stored energy).
Sure we have an abundance of food and a sedentary lifestyle now, but our society is quite fragile. If some catyclism were to happen, such as the mile high pacific tsunami predicted if that shelf of hawaii (which is sliding) were to suddenly give way, then we may lose that infrastructure.
If we engineer out or impede this gene, we may end up going extinct in the absence of abundant food supplies, which exist now only because we are artifically, and some argue only temporarily, increasing the carrying capacity of our planet.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
WTF? Where are you getting your information? What's with your defeatest attitutde? What, we're just all supposed to accept the fact that we're all going to become obese (except that "lucky 5%"?).
Seriously, obesity in America much, much worse than 20 years ago. The CDC has been tracking the rise of adult obesity, and it's pretty shocking. Fast food, junk food, huge portions have been around for 20 years, it's not like American bodies all suddenly developed glandular problems. It's our lifestyles that have changed, and it's not impossible to change it back.
You can lose weight, it just isn't easy.
I've been doing martial arts for 10 years and seen lots of people lose weight on it. Walking isn't really high intensity enough.
Stuff like this Forbes article is the reason I hate the popular press's presentation of research - especially when those doing the research are interested in self-aggrandizing (for fun or profit).
Yeah - deleting it prevents them from becoming diabetic and from developing asthma - because without it endoytosis doesn't work right, the immune response is hampered and and so some autoimmune diseases don't happen.
Deleting it also screws with absorption of lipids, hence no fatty liver disease, atherosclerosis or obesity.
In addition, it's involved in recycling of presynapric vesicle membranes so it wouldn't surprise me if deleting / blocking it had cognitive / behavioral effects.
So, yeah, it sounds like getting rid of it is a miracle cure, but (as others have pointed out), it's there for a reason.
Come on, does anyone really believe that knocking out a single protein would make a 'metabolic super-mouse'?