Every bite you take
Take where your food comes from seriously? Believe in animal rights but can?t give up that juicy steak? Avoiding that sausage because the pig it came from grew up on a diet of growth hormones and will add extra pounds? Worry not, there is a new environment, health and animal rights-friendly product in the offing. Mark Post, a researcher at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, dreams of ridding the world of wasteful rearing of farm animals for food by developing life-like steaks, reports Nature. In the early stages of this ambitious project, also being undertaken by several labs across the US, Post hopes to make a pork sausage, showcased next to the living pig that donated its starter cells. Although the technology for producing a full steak is uber-expensive and probably decades away, that it is possible to ?grow? meat without slaughtering animals is nothing short of magical. For this body-conscious generation, perhaps the more attractive feature of this meat might be that because it is produced in labs sans the hormone-injected feed that increases its consumer?s size along with the farm animal?s, their waistlines will be better taken care of.
Merchant of Venice
Replace Shylock with hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) aka the pregnancy hormone. Although its biological function is to keep the foetus protected against the mother?s immune cells, doctors have found another use for this hormone?to further the neuroses of anorexic and rich women. In addition to being used in fertility treatments, hCG is being marketed as a weight loss agent. It helps the body metabolise fat faster, allowing targeted weight loss (or so those who prescribe this drug off-label claim). So if you desire to lose a ?pound of flesh? a day, all you need is to go on a near-starvation diet and follow the ritual of a heroin-addict, injecting yourself with hCG every morning. And none of this comes cheap, with a bill of over $1,100 a month.
Studies, however, say that the hormone does little for weight-loss?12 of 14 trials showed that hCG had no effect on weight, reported the NYT. But even though it doesn?t do its ?prescribed? job, the therapy does have several undesirable health implications, not the worst of which are headaches, depression, acne, hair loss. The worst side-effect would have to be the encouragement of eating habits that mimic anorexia via the 500 calorie-a-day prescription. Spend a tenth on some running shoes and find your way to the neighbourhood park, instead of the doctor?s office.
Once fat, always fat
Don?t hang up those running shoes just yet. Did you know that in addition to the usual suspects?arms, thighs and stomach?that are prone to accumulating fat, your bone marrow can also get flabby? A team of researchers at the University of North Carolina has found that the mesenchymal stem cells found in bone marrow are ?lazy? and will turn into fat cells, given a chance. But on being stimulated with mechanical vibrations, i.e., exercised, they differentiate into bone cells, indicating long-term implications for bone-mass density, especially important for menopausal women prone to osteoporosis because the fate of marrow stem cells determines the strength and quality of the bone.
On similar lines, a research team at the University of Southern California found that, regardless of age, the amount of fat in the leg?s bone marrow was inversely related to the amount of bone. This basically means the more fat in the marrow, the less bone in the thigh. And the thing about cells is, once they have differentiated i.e., chosen to be either fat or bone or RBCs, they lose their ability to morph into another cell-type. In other words, once a fat cell, always a fat cell. So, get off your derri?re and stimulate those marrow cells.