OVEREATING doesn’t have to lead to obesity, according to research in mice where the metabolic pathway has been successfully blocked.
When we eat fat, a hormone known as gastric inhibitory polypeptide, or GIP, helps the fat to be stored efficiently.
Yutaka Seino at the University of Kyoto in Japan and colleagues fed high-fat diets to normal mice and to mice genetically engineered to lack the receptor for GIP. While the normal mice became obese, the engineered mice gained no weight, apparently burning off the fat as energy (Nature Medicine, DOI: 10.1038/nm727).
