According to ScienceDaily.com, researchers exploring human metabolism at the University of California, San Francisco have uncovered a handful of chemical compounds that regulate fat storage in worms, offering a new tool for understanding obesity and finding future treatments for diseases associated with obesity.
The UCSF team took armies of microscopic worms called C.elegans and exposed them to thousands of different chemical compounds. Giving these compounds to the worms, they discovered, basically made them skinnier or fatter without affecting how they eat, grow, or reproduce.
The discovery gives scientists new ways to investigate metabolism and could eventually lead to the development of new drugs to regulate excessive fat accumulation and address the metabolic issues that underlie a number of major human health problems, including, obesity, diabetes and some forms of cancer.
This article caught my eye solely because we always speak about worms in class. After I started reading it, I was surprised to see that they discovered new ways to investigate metabolism in humans. I thought it was cool that they could take worms and compare it to the complex systems of humans. Obesity in America has become a growing (no pun intended) problem over the years, and it is only getting worse. To be able to get a start on figuring out new drugs to help boost metabolism and fat loss would be great. I can also see it being negative, however, due to the fact that our society strives to look good and be skinny and new drugs can hurt our ways of thinking on how to lose weight.
I found this to be a really interesting article. I think its interesting that they can take worms and compare it to human systems.
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