This may be a breakthrough for obesity:

After the volunteers had eaten, Dr Batterham took blood samples from them every 30 minutes for an hour and a half, and measured the concentration of peptide YY. As she suspected, it was the high-protein meal that coaxed the greatest production of the peptide.

Having proved the point in people, she then turned to a more reliable laboratory animal—the mouse. First, she showed that mice do, indeed, respond to a high-protein diet in the way that people do. Both the short-term response (more peptide YY) and the long-term one (a reduction in obesity) were the same in rodents as they were in humans.

Having confirmed that similarity, she was able to experiment with the idea that peptide YY might be used directly as a slimming agent, thus getting rid of the side effects of a diet composed of meat, eggs and cheese—such as diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, and liver and bone abnormalities. She did that by using mice that had had the gene for peptide YY knocked out of their DNA, and thus could not produce the hormone.

In this case, obese mice stay obese even when fed on the murine equivalent of Atkins. Dose them with peptide YY at appropriate levels, though, and they will lose weight even on a normal, non-Atkins mix.

I don't worry about obesity, but I really enjoy reading about smart people who are also clever. When this mixture occurs in someone who takes the opportunity to help others, it's just icing on the cake.

Dr. Batterham certainly fits into this category.

Hmm. Use this peptide YY as a "slimming agent" huh? Yes, that is just what we need: a way to help people look the way they want without having to actually make any effort to get there. Nothing like the hard work of taking a pill to encourage people to treat themselves well.

Michael, ever read Niven's Inferno?

Let's wait and see. It could be like leptin. That hormone reduces appetite, but it turned out overweight people have plenty of it. The guess is that overweight people have become resistant to it.

Don't neglect thermic effect of feeding. A high protein diet (mine, for example, averages 180-200 cal/day protein) has a higher energy cost to digest than does one higher in carbohydrate. Protein takes about ten percent of ingested calories to digest; carbohydrate under six. It adds up.

Michael, ever read Niven's Inferno?

I have, but I fail to see the connection.

mmmmmm.... peptide YY....

Can I sprinkle it on my doughnuts?