There is a Skinny Gene After All!

Posted by Alex in Medicine, Science & Tech on September 12, 2007 at 12:02 pm


Yay for Dr. Jonathan Graff and his team from UT Southwestern Medical Center! They have just re-discovered the long lost "skinny" gene:

The gene, called adipose, was discovered in fat fruit flies more than 50 years ago by a graduate student at Yale University, but few people knew about it. Its mechanism was unknown, and whether it’s important in other genes was a mystery. [...]

It was discovered that the gene, which is also present in humans, is likely to be a high-level master switch that tells the body whether to accumulate or burn fat.

In the mice, the researchers found that increasing adipose activity improved the animals’ health in many ways. Mice with experimentally increased adipose activityate as much or more than normal mice; however, they were leaner, had diabetes-resistant fat cells, and were better able to control insulin and blood-sugar metabolism.

In contrast, animals with reduced adipose activity were fatter, less healthy and had diabetes.

Link | MSNBC Article


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COMMENT

9 comments to "There is a Skinny Gene After All!"

  1. Retrokatze
    September 12th, 2007 at 3:46 pm

    Thank you! Now could we make this knowledge mainstream really fast, so we skinny people don't get the evil eye on the beach anymore because we're obviously starving ourselves to death?

  2. Thespian24601
    September 12th, 2007 at 5:29 pm

    So do we know if there's a way to be able to recreate these effects in humans as well?

  3. L.B. Jeffries
    September 12th, 2007 at 5:43 pm

    *WARNING*

    Excessive exposure to the skinny gene may turn you into a zombie who enjoys the taste of human flesh. After being bitten by one of these zombies, bite victims often experience overexposure to the skinny gene as well.

  4. sickb*stard
    September 12th, 2007 at 6:38 pm

    Finally, no more fat mice to deal with.

  5. Retrokatze
    September 12th, 2007 at 9:35 pm

    @ Thespian:

    Not without a LOT more research. Even with the discovery that there're specific genes that lead to a predisposition to skinniness or adiposity, we still don't know the how, what happens "upstream".

    @ L.B. Jeffries: *lol*

  6. Kat
    September 13th, 2007 at 12:53 am

    Gimme.

  7. XuYu
    September 13th, 2007 at 4:19 am

    Now if he can only figure out a way to engineer my testicles to produce this stuff...

  8. pol x
    September 13th, 2007 at 7:15 am

    So when is there to be the shot that'll gene dope anyone not skinny?

  9. Stealth Fire
    February 28th, 2008 at 6:57 pm

    I think I got the skinny gene. I'm REAL thin despite the fact I eat like a pig. =P


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