Our Relentless, Expensive Quest for the MAGIC PILL Continues...
Posted by Alicia Leeds on Thu, Jan 12, 2012 @ 06:05 PM
The guys at Ember Therapeutics, heavily funded by the NIH and graciously assisted by the nice folks at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School have spent a lot of time and money recently looking at fat.
Humans have two kinds of fat.
Brown fat =Good (burns energy), White Fat=Bad (stores energy)
What these well educated guys found is that a hormone they call irisin (named after the Greek Messenger Goddess Iris) can stimulate white (bad) fat cells to produce brown (good) fat instead. Their research on fat rodents showed that "... even relatively short treatments of obese mice with irisin caused an increase in energy expenditure with no changes in activity levels or food intake, resulting in improved glucose homeostasis and weight loss."
Translation? ... the mice eat whatever they want and lay around all day while Irisin (the Greek Goddess of Ka Ching!!! $$$) manages their calories and blood sugar for them, and they even lose weight!
So goes the research on mice and... Ember Therapeutics hopes... men.
Guess the theory is we could just inject everybody with Irisin so we can eat all we want, do nothing and lose weight! - What could possibly go wrong with that plan?
Nevermind that humans are not designed to withstand endless consumption of calories and forget the fact that we are guests on a planet we do not have a right to destroy in our never ending quest for MORE beef jerkey.
$$$$$$$???????
Call me a luddite... but wait... cause here's my favorite part! - a quote by Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, lead researcher, “We believe that innovative brown fat targets and therapeutic pathways are key to developing new and effective treatments for metabolic disorders and that, given these data, Irisin could be a therapeutic for human metabolic disease and other disorders that are improved with exercise.”
Because it's not enough that we already know that HUMAN METABOLIC DISEASE AND OTHER DISORDERS ARE IMPROVED WITH EXERCISE!!!
Hold on to your hats, everyone... and your wallets, these guys are betting on hitting the jackpot with this magic pill and they're investing your tax dollars to do it, too!
Me? I'm putting on my yoga pants and betting on Nike.
Alicia Leeds Meyers is a Personal Coach who walks the talk and helps her clients uncover their path to a healthy lifestyle.
