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Study: Mice Gain Weight In Cold Temperatures Due To Gut Changes (economist.com)
Beeftopia writes with the results of a study described in The Economist: Mice were separated into two groups, one temperature maintained at 6C, the other at 22C. Researchers expected the cold mice to lose weight as they burned stored fat to stay warm. And for the first few days they did. But after five to ten days, in spite of their rations not increasing, the cold mice begain to put on weight. When scientists examined the gut microbiome of the previously identical mice, they found they were radically different. Additionally, the intestine had grown villi 50% larger than those of the warm temperature mice. Finally, after transplanting the gut microflora into a new batch of aseptic mice kept at warm temperatures, those mice showed the increased insulin sensitivity, cold tolerance, and villi length of the cold mice.
Scratching my head here. What's the conclusion to be drawn, from these experiments? That if we don't want to gain weight, we should all move to Florida?
This explains why I gain weight when pouring beer after cold beer into my gut.
I found that interesting. Identical mice placed in different environments, on the same diets. One set gets fat, the other stays normal weight.
Certainly obese humans should eat healthier and exercise, but perhaps it's not all moral failing that make them fatter than normal weight types.
Also, something like this might suggest further areas of human research. Instead of just saying that the naturally skinny differ "in the genes", researchers might start investigating different subsystems, such as the digestive, to see how changes in them might mitigate weight gain.
Exactly! Our microbiomes are the new frontier of health for all sorts of things, obesity being number one for the general western population.
It's only a matter of time, and IP law, that engineered bacteria will be sold as designer probiotics to counter all sorts of maladies. Could we easily create a grassroots organization to distribute colon flora? Sure! But the fat, sterile westerners will say "Ew, gross!", but happily pay for Monsanto Microbiome Enhancement Plus for a premium. (it's a fictional drug to counter the bacterial imbalance created by eating processed, industrialized food.)
Just as the finding of lead in our environment is bad for humans, perhaps so will antibiotics from medicines to soaps, along with polymers such as BPA (commonly found in most thermal paper receipts that people handle on a daily basis), be found to cause harm to our microbiome.
If you count cells in the human body, there are more bacterial cells than human cells; of course the human cells are much larger, but human individuals are complex organisms living with lots of other living "things".
No. They should simply account for what they have no control over and adjust their calories intake.