Rather than another diet-of-the-week, the new UCLA study provides a completely new way to approach the problem
In a study published in Cell Metabolism, chemical and biomolecular engineering professor James Liao, associate professor of human genetics showed that genetic alterations enable mice to convert fat into carbon dioxide and remain lean while eating the equivalent of a fast-food diet We came up with an unconventional idea which we borrowed from plants and bacteria We know plants and bacteria digest fats differently from humans, from mammals Plant seeds usually store a lot of fat. When they germinate, they convert the fat to sugar to grow The reason they can digest fat this way is because they have a set of enzymes that's uniquely present in plants and bacteria. These enzymes are called the ‘glyoxylate shunt’ and are missing in mammals found that the new biochemical pathway promoted cellular responses that led the cells to metabolize fats rather than sugar |
