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Mice Given an Experimental Gene Therapy Don't Get Fat (boingboing.net)
AmiMoJo shares a report from Boing Boing: Researchers at Flinders University knocked out a gene known as RCAN1 in mice, hypothesizing that this would increase "non-shivering thermogenesis," which "expends calories as heat rather than storing them as fat" -- the mice were fed a high-calorie diet and did not gain weight. In particular, the modified mice did not store fat around their middles -- a phenomenon associated with many health risks, including cardiac problems -- and their resting muscles burned more calories.
[Vice News reports:] The study's authors point out that there's a time and place for RCAN1's role in preventing calories from being burned: namely, back when food was scarce and calories weren't so readily available. In the modern world of "caloric abundance," however, too much fat is being stored and real health problems are ensuing as a result. The researchers suggest that "These adaptive avenues of energy expenditure [such as RCAN1] may now contribute to the growing epidemic of obesity." "We looked at a variety of different diets with various time spans from eight weeks up to six months," said Damien, "and in every case we saw health improvements in the absence of the RCAN1 gene. "Mice on a high-fat diet that lacked this gene gained no weight."
[Vice News reports:] The study's authors point out that there's a time and place for RCAN1's role in preventing calories from being burned: namely, back when food was scarce and calories weren't so readily available. In the modern world of "caloric abundance," however, too much fat is being stored and real health problems are ensuing as a result. The researchers suggest that "These adaptive avenues of energy expenditure [such as RCAN1] may now contribute to the growing epidemic of obesity." "We looked at a variety of different diets with various time spans from eight weeks up to six months," said Damien, "and in every case we saw health improvements in the absence of the RCAN1 gene. "Mice on a high-fat diet that lacked this gene gained no weight."
It's not ideal for long term use, but as a way to lose weight it's very promising.
The reason why fat people find it so hard to lose weight and keep it off is that the body fights them. When they cut down their calorie intake it goes into starvation mode. They feel tried all the time and it reduces burn to a minimum, which ends up meaning they need to diet extremely aggressively to get anywhere and will likely be unable to keep the weight off. 1500 calories/day is neither healthy nor sustainable, but in starvation mode that's what they need to achieve.
This gene seems to fix that. Say it could be turned on and off at will, or perhaps turned off but then the body regulated with medication instead. People could maintain a healthy 2500 calories/day diet with all the nutrition they need, and still lose weight and then maintain at that level.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Surely you are aware that many people can afford neither the time nor the money to have "three meals a day from fresh vegetables they pick up in the farmer's market", right?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
That's pretty dumb. Some people can eat whatever they want and stay skinny. Some people have to work really hard. As long as being thin is an advantage, I see no reason to work hard to get it.
If there were a gene that made you smarter, would you write something like "you should just read more books"?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
There has never been a fat person who did not shed massive weight when reduced intake is combined with real physical activity.
Go read Gary Taubes' book "Why we get fat". He has an entire section of the book that covers individual and population studies of people who did demanding physical labor and gained weight, everything from oil field workers to a group sedentary people who trained for and ran a marathon and dropped only an average of about 5 pounds. This is the larger problem with the obesity debate. So much emphasis is on calorie reduction, exercise and the inevitable character critique that comes from berating "lazy fat people" who can't lose weight and keep eating".
There's almost no emphasis on the nature of the calories consumed and their relationship to the body's metabolic processes of lipogenesis. We've known that insulin controls lipogenesis and what causes insulin production, yet we're still talking about only in terms of calories eaten.
I actually gave very low carb eating a try, and in about six months I'd dropped about 20-odd pounds without any exercising and without any calorie/intake regulation. I simply ate low carb foods when I was hungry. Say what you will, but it worked and I'm fairly convinced Taubes and low-carb are onto something.
What's kind of interesting and telling are the substantial number of people who are militantly opposed to anti-obesity strategies that don't involve caloric restriction and regimented exercise. It's like a religion. If they invented a cheap and safe pill that let people cut their weight without doing anything I'm convinced the diet-and-exercise crowd would still oppose it. Why? Most of diet-and-exercise is just moralizing. I'm sure we'd see arguments like "the anti-fat pill is bad for the environment because people are creating too much trash and sewage with their overconsumption." The responses are akin to telling a Catholic you can get into heaven without believing or praying to God.