Thursday, May 8, 2014

A Fattening Gene

Eating too many high sugar and trans fat foods leads to Obesity, this is common knowledege. A more mind boggling question, is there a fattening gene?
Food has never been as abundant as it is today. Food is cheaper and more convenient than ever before. You can drive by a fast food restaurant and buy a trans fat filled meal, and be driving away in five minutes."Working in cooperation with colleagues from the Sendai and Kumamoto Universities in Japan, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim have now identified a protein from the sirtuin group that plays a major role in the utilisation of energy in the context of a high-fat diet and is responsible for the formation of fat depots. Sirtuins are known as a group of proteins with wide-ranging biological functions"(Heil 1).

Article: http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2014/04/30/a_fattening_gene.html

Nature of Science Themes: Science is Collaborative - There have been experiments by many college scientists to figure out if a fattening gene truly exists.

2 comments:

  1. Interesting article. I think that it's really cool that we are finding out more and more about ourselves every day. Even though there is currently not perfect evidence of a fattening gene, the fact that such a thing is possible could be huge in how we deal with our weight. It will be interesting to see how this discovery affects our lives in the future, positively or negatively.

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  2. The finding of this gene could help many people in their lives. It could help because if there is a way to tap into this gene and change it, there would be a lot less obesity than there is today. This would help people who struggle with their weight and would lead to a healthier world.

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