IF YOU’RE fat, your mother’s milk might be to blame, suggests Edward Leiter
at the Jackson Laboratory in Maine.
Leiter and his colleagues crossed different strains of mice to pinpoint the
genetic combinations responsible for obesity and diabetes. By swapping pups
around when their mothers were nursing, Leiter discovered that mice with a
predisposition for diabetes were less obese if they were nursed by a lean foster
mother (Genome Research, vol 10, p 1568).
“Milk is one of the most complex biological liquids we know,” says Leiter. He
plans to compare the milk of lean and obese mice to…
