X-Message-Number: 27206
From: Kennita Watson <>
Subject: fat accelerates aging, fat burns fat, fat vaccine tested
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 11:00:46 -0700

 From Discover Magazine:

After examining 1,122 adult women, molecular biologist Tim Spector of  
St. Thomas' Hospital in London concluded that extra pounds can age  
white blood cells as much as 8.8 years. It is unclear how the entire  
body is affected because Spector looked only at telomeres,  
nucleotides on the ends of chromosomes that slowly erode as cells  
copy themselves during normal aging. But years of animal studies  
suggest a strong link. Smoking also ages cells, Spector found. Women  
who smoked a pack a day for 40 years added as much as 7.4 years to  
their blood cells' age.

  But:

Endocrinologist Clay Semenkovich of Washington University in Saint  
Louis has intriguing news for low-fat dieters: To burn fat, you have  
to eat more of it. Semenkovich genetically engineered mice so that  
they no longer had the ability to make new fat themselves. He then  
fed them a fat-free diet. Instead of slimming down, the mice  
developed low blood sugar, diabetic tendencies, and fatty livers  
worthy of p t . But when the mice resumed a diet that included fat,  
their metabolisms returned to normal.  Without new fat, the mice  
could successfully mobilize stores of body fat to the liver but  
couldn't process it once it was there,  says Semenkovich. He is now  
working to identify the specific type of fat the body needs to burn  
off the pounds. And one day, he says, whatever it is could be sold in  
pill form.

And this may help some of us soon:

You can get shots for polio, measles, and the mumps why not for  
obesity? Ordinary vaccines work by provoking an immune response to  
detoxified viruses or bacteria. So a fat vaccine, Swiss scientists  
reason, should work by provoking an immune response to ghrelin, a  
hormone that normally tells us to eat. Mice given an experimental  
vaccine developed by Cytos Biotechnology in Zurich, Switzerland,  
remained an impressive 15 percent lighter on an all-you-can-eat high- 
fat diet. Exactly how ghrelin triggers eating is still a mystery, and  
scientists aren't sure that derailing the hormone won't produce  
unwanted side effects. More information should be forthcoming after  
results of the company's tests on 112 human volunteers this summer  
become public.

Live long and prosper,
Kennita
--
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
none but ourselves can free our minds.
           -- Bob Marley, "Redemption Song"

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