New research shows that our brains help make us fat, because they think of our obese bodies as normal, so they don’t stop craving food. And there?s a country in the world where fat is considered beautiful, and women go to special camps to be “fattened up” before marriage.
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Scientists are working on a drug that may be used for chemical liposuction. It’s a natural enzyme that breaks down collagen in cells. Right now, it’s being used to shrink cancer tumors but researcher Tom Wegman says, “There’s no reason why fat in other parts of the body wouldn’t respond in the same way?We did think then that this might become a kind of chemical liposuction.” It’s already worked on obese mice.
But Wegman says, “We have yet to decide whether we want to investigate its effects for removing body fat. To become licensed as a chemical liposuction in the U.S. would be an expensive proposition.” In 2001, doctors conducted about 800,000 liposuction procedures in the U.S. alone.
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Do you weigh more if you put your scales on a carpet than you do if they?re on a tile floor? This is a long-standing controversy among dieters. Now researchers say it?s true?you really do seem to weigh more if you put your scales on a carpeted surface.
David MacKay, a physicist at the University of Cambridge, heard about this controversy by chance, while talking with a friend. “I was just chatting to her and she said, ‘You’re a physicist. Why do you weigh more on carpet than on a hard surface?’ I didn’t have a clue, but it seemed like a good question to throw at an undergrad,” he says.
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Heavier people are more likely to be killed or seriously injured in car accidents than lighter people, according to a study carried out in Seattle. That could mean car designers will have to build in new safety features to compensate for the extra hazards facing overweight passengers.
Car manufacturers have already redesigned air bags so they inflate to lower pressures, making them less of a danger to smaller women and children. But no one yet knows what is putting overweight passengers at extra risk.
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