LOL.   Gorging on a high fat diet can PREVENT obesity!

It's welcome news for anyone who has ever tried to shift a few pounds.  Eating a high fat diet can actually prevent obesity and improve your metabolism, according to a study.

After tests on mice, researchers found eating a high fat diet on a fixed schedule - eating at the same time for the same length of time each day - leads to a reduction in body weight and a ‘unique’ metabolism.

Previous research has revealed disrupting mammals’ daily rhythms, or feeding them a high fat diet, disrupts metabolism and leads to obesity.

However, scientists say eating on a schedule leads to a metabolism where ingested fats are not stored, but used for energy at times when food is not available.

And improving metabolism through careful scheduling of meals, without limiting the amount of food, could be used to prevent obesity in people.

They hypothesised careful scheduling of meals would regulate the biological clock and reduce the effects of a high-fat diet that, under normal circumstances, would lead to obesity.

For 18 weeks, researchers fed mice a high fat diet on a fixed schedule, comparing these mice to three control groups - one eating a low fat diet on a fixed schedule, one that ate on an unscheduled low fat and one group eating an unscheduled high fat diet.

Results showed all four groups of mice gained weight throughout the experiment, but final body weight was greater in the group that ate an unscheduled high fat diet.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers also found the mice on the scheduled high fat diet had a lower final body weight than the mice eating an unscheduled high fat diet.

But surprisingly the mice on the scheduled high fat diet also had a lower final body weight than the mice eating an unscheduled low fat diet - despite both groups consuming the same amount of calories, the FASEB Journal study says.

Professor Oren Froy said: 'Our research shows that the timing of food consumption takes precedence over the amount of fat in the diet, leading to improved metabolism and helping to prevent obesity.

'Improving metabolism through the careful scheduling of meals, without limiting the content of the daily menu, could be used as a therapeutic tool to prevent obesity in humans.'

SOURCE





New stem cell gel applied to site of injury 'can regenerate broken spinal cord nerves to an astonishing degree'

It will be a huge step forward if this generalizes to people but caution is advisable.  Regeneration is not uncommon in lower  species but not found in people

A stem cell gel developed by scientists can regenerate broken spinal cord nerves, research has shown.

The gel is applied to the site of an injury. In rats with completely severed spinal cords, it produced an 'astonishing degree' of nerve growth, U.S. scientists said.  Treated animals which were previously paralysed experienced 'significant' functional improvement and were able to move all the joints of their affected legs.

The gel was made by embedding neural stem cells in a mixture of blood clotting protein and growth chemicals.

Lead researcher Professor Mark Tuszynski, from the University of California at San Diego, said: 'Using this method, after six weeks the number of axons (nerve fibres) emerging from the injury site exceeded by 200-fold what had ever been seen before.

'The axons also grew ten times the length of axons in any previous study, and, importantly, the regeneration of these axons resulted in significant functional improvement.'  Similar results were obtained in the laboratory using human stem cells.

Cells were tagged with a fluorescent protein so that their progress could be monitored.  Scientists watched them grow, become neurons, and sprout axons.

In June, it was announced that researchers had successfully grown living bones in a laboratory using stem cells.

That technique could in future be used to replace shattered limbs, treat osteoporosis and arthritis and fix defects such as cleft palate, it was claimed.

The researchers took around a month to transform stem cells originally taken from fat tissue into sections of fully-formed bone up to several centimetres long.

Standard bone grafts involve two procedures, to cut bone from elsewhere in the patient's body before transplanting it into the damaged area, which carry the risk of infection and complications.

Bone can also be obtained from donations, but this brings the chance of rejection.

The new method would allow bones to be custom made to shape outside the body, using the patients own stem cells, removing the need for a potentially traumatic operation and reducing the likelihood of rejection.

So far the research has been carried out only on animals but a patient trial is planned for later this year.

That Israeli technology, developed by biotech company Bonus BioGroup and researchers at the Technion Institute of Research, involves growing the bone to fit the exact shape and size of the damaged area.

SOURCE