Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Enable Mice To Exhale Fat
destinyland writes "UCLA researchers made a startling discovery: genetic alterations enable mice to convert fat into carbon dioxide.
Mammals digest fats differently than bacteria — so researchers introduced bacteria genes into mouse livers, and 'the excess fat was literally released into thin air.' (One researcher calls it 'an unconventional idea which we borrowed from plants and bacteria.') The research potentially could help treat serious medical conditions including diabetes, heart disease — and of course, obesity."
The problem is that global warming legislation will raise energy costs, alter land use, and, ultimately, in a few hundred years, shorten the growing season. So we're pretty much setting ourselves up to go through getting a bit thinner. Cutting down on our ability to save fat is almost like evolutionary suicide. 100 years from now, it will be like the old days, people that are fat will be rare and obesity will be a sign of power and wealth.
This is my sig.
Is this something that has to be engineered into an organism, or can it be applied after-market? From the sounds of it, it's a genetic splice and not something easily applied to preexisting organisms. TFA doesn't seem to say. Anyone know? Great news for the fatties of tomorrow, but what about the porkers of today?
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
Your point is well made, and quite important; but I don't think it goes quite far enough. Even if we did cling to the naive view of "willpower", so what? Is technology that makes life easier a bad thing? Why suffer when you can have your cake and eat it too?
Sure, you could avoid weight gain by eating your veggies and running a lot; but if you can have your steak and be slim too, why not? There is something really perverse and masochistic about opposition to this sort of tech(and masochism is fine, if that's your thing; but imposing it on others is a bit much). There are loads of situations where you could avoid consequences by "self control", or you could just use a little engineering. If I need dental work, should I skip the anesthetic and just suck it up? Why? Anesthetics are cheap and pain sucks. If my eyes aren't so good, should I just squint? Why? A few dollars worth of polycarbonate and some optical know-how will make my life substantially better. Should I refrain from sex unless I can deal with children? Why? Prophylactics are cheap and highly effective.
There are, certainly, some things that no amount of technology will compensate for, mostly because they are unethical; but in cases where the downsides of indulgence can be cleared up with a little engineering, advocating self-control instead is just puritanism. Perfectly fine to make the choice for yourself, or if you suffer the externalities; but damn perverse to impose on others.
The human body is in essence a fat-burning machine. It is made to burn fat, and fat is its most efficient, most safest form of energy. As a coincidence it can also handle pure sugars and carbs (which break down to sugars) by secreting insulin into the bloodstream when carbs/sugars are ingested. When insulin enters the bloodstream, two things happen: Firstly, the body's lipolysis stops (the breaking-down of fat), resulting in the body stopping its burning of your fat reserves, and instead starts storing the fat you ingested (ever had a "pasta diet" for a longer while and noticed the effect of it?). Secondly, the insulin (and not the sugar) results in the familiar increased heart activity (and sometimes palpitations) that come from sugar ingestion, which is a contributing factor to reduced cardiac health. Last of all, stressful production of insulin due a diet overly rich in carbs or sugars, as known since long, increases the risk of developing diabetes - simply put, a burned out pancreas.
Carbs/sugars are the catalysts for storing fat instead of burning it. The problem is solved by reducing your carb/sugar intake, and replacing that energy amount by a fat intake.
There are, actually, ways of causing the body to break down food without providing ATP(by interfering with oxidative phosphorylation in your mitochondria), instead producing heat, which allows extremely efficient weight loss. 2,4-Dinitrophenol was used back in the '30s for the purpose. Unfortunately, if you get the dose wrong, the hyperthermia will fuck you up quite efficiently. Not recommended.