Are Rodent Models Fit For Investigation Of Human Obesity And Related Diseases

Not only developed countries, but also most developing areas of the world, have experienced a surge in obesity prevalence over recent decades. Obesity complications are now among the leading causes of premature mortality, encompassing conditions such as coronary heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. This places a heavy burden on contemporary healthcare systems. While rodent models have limitations as experimental models of human obesity-related disease, study of rats and mice either spontaneously prone - or resistant - to obesity, or genetically engineered to illuminate underlying mechanisms has yielded key information about the metabolic defects linked to obesity, and their associated diseases. This topic includes both original research studies and reviews of the use of animal studies in specific areas of obesity-related disease. Various methodological approaches are discussed, with evaluation of the extent to which use of animal models has facilitated progress, or, conversely, has proved a cul de sac in investigation of human disease mechanisms. Consideration is also given to future strategies to use such rodent models optimally to enhance comprehension and treatment of pandemic human obesity-related diseases.

Not only developed countries, but also most developing areas of the world, have experienced a surge in obesity prevalence over recent decades. Obesity complications are now among the leading causes of premature mortality, encompassing conditions such as coronary heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. This places a heavy burden on contemporary healthcare systems. While rodent models have limitations as experimental models of human obesity-related disease, study of rats and mice either spontaneously prone - or resistant - to obesity, or genetically engineered to illuminate underlying mechanisms has yielded key information about the metabolic defects linked to obesity, and their associated diseases. This topic includes both original research studies and reviews of the use of animal studies in specific areas of obesity-related disease. Various methodological approaches are discussed, with evaluation of the extent to which use of animal models has facilitated progress, or, conversely, has proved a cul de sac in investigation of human disease mechanisms. Consideration is also given to future strategies to use such rodent models optimally to enhance comprehension and treatment of pandemic human obesity-related diseases.

There is no magic pill. There is no perfect diet. Could it be that our underlying assumption—that what we’re eating is making us fat and sick—is just plain wrong? To address the rapid rise of “lifestyle diseases” like diabetes and heart disease, scientists have conducted a whopping 500,000 studies of diet and another 300,000 of obesity. Journalists have written close to 250 million news articles combined about these topics. Yet nothing seems to halt the epidemic. Anastacia Marx de Salcedo’s Eat Like a Pig, Run Like a Horse looks not just to data-driven science, but to animals and the natural world around us for a new approach. What she finds will transform the national debate about the root causes of our most pervasive diseases and offer hope of dramatically reducing the number who suffer—no matter what they eat. It all began with her own medical miracle—she has multiple sclerosis but has discovered that daily exercise was key to keeping it from progressing. And now, new research backs up her own experience. This revelation prompted Marx de Salcedo to ask what would happen if people with lifestyle illnesses put physical activity front and center in their daily lives? Eat Like a Pig, Run Like a Horse takes us on a fascinating journey that weaves together true confessions, mad(ish) scientists, and beguiling animal stories. Marx de Salcedo shows that we need to move beyond our current diet-focused model to a new, dynamic concept of metabolism as regulated by exercise. Suddenly the answer to good health is almost embarrassingly simple. Don’t worry about what you eat. Worry about how much you move. In a few years’ time, adhering to a finicky Keto, Paleo, low-carb, or any other special diet to stay healthy will be as antiquated as using Daffy’s Elixir or Dr. Bonker’s Celebrated Egyptian Oil—popular “medicines” from the 1800s—to cure disease. And just as the 19th-century health revolution was based on a new understanding that the true cause of malaria, tuberculosis, and cholera was microorganisms, so the coming 21st-century one will be based on our new understanding that exercise is the only way to metabolic health. Fascinating and brilliant, Eat Like a Pig, Run Like a Horse is primed to usher in that new era.

The book provides an overview on how the microbiome contributes to human health and disease. The microbiome has also become a burgeoning field of research in medicine, agriculture & environment. The readers will obtain profound knowledge on the connection between intestinal microbiota and immune defense systems, medicine, agriculture & environment. The book may address several researchers, clinicians and scholars working in biomedicine, microbiology and immunology. The application of new technologies has no doubt revolutionized the research initiatives providing new insights into the dynamics of these complex microbial communities and their role in medicine, agriculture & environment shall be more emphasized. Drawing on broad range concepts of disciplines and model systems, this book primarily provides a conceptual framework for understanding these human-microbe, animal-microbe & plant-microbe, interactions while shedding critical light on the scientific challenges that lie ahead. Furthermore this book explains why microbiome research demands a creative and interdisciplinary thinking—the capacity to combine microbiology with human, animal and plant physiology, ecological theory with immunology, and evolutionary perspectives with metabolic science.This book provides an accessible and authoritative guide to the fundamental principles of microbiome science, an exciting and fast-emerging new discipline that is reshaping many aspects of the life sciences. These microbial partners can also drive ecologically important traits, from thermal tolerance to diet in a typical immune system, and have contributed to animal and plant diversification over long evolutionary timescales. Also this book explains why microbiome research presents a more complete picture of the biology of humans and other animals, and how it can deliver novel therapies for human health and new strategies.

The primary purpose of fitness and body composition standards in the U.S. Armed Forces has always been to select individuals best suited to the physical demands of military service, based on the assumption that proper body weight and composition supports good health, physical fitness, and appropriate military appearance. The current epidemic of overweight and obesity in the United States affects the military services. The pool of available recruits is reduced because of failure to meet body composition standards for entry into the services and a high percentage of individuals exceeding military weight-for-height standards at the time of entry into the service leave the military before completing their term of enlistment. To aid in developing strategies for prevention and remediation of overweight in military personnel, the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command requested the Committee on Military Nutrition Research to review the scientific evidence for: factors that influence body weight, optimal components of a weight loss and weight maintenance program, and the role of gender, age, and ethnicity in weight management.

Nutrition has long been considered more the domain of medicine and agriculture than of the biological sciences, yet it touches and shapes all aspects of the natural world. The need for nutrients determines whether wild animals thrive, how populations evolve and decline, and how ecological communities are structured. 'The Nature of Nutrition' addresses nutrition's enormously complex role in biology, both at the level of individual organisms and in their broader ecological interactions.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a clustering of metabolic complications representing a pre-morbid condition that is a substantial public health burden. Animal models provide an opportunity to examine correlations among different metabolic parameters to understand why metabolic complications sometimes cluster and sometimes do not. This chapter provides an overview of animal models of MetS that are used to understand etiology and pathophysiology, with a focus on methods of identifying and testing candidate genes with the aim of translating results to human studies. Genetic, epigenetic, environmental, and gene by environmental methods and results are discussed along with important lessons learned. Rodent models are the most frequently used, however other animal models including dogs, pigs, sheep, and non-human primates have contributed to our understanding of MetS and each are discussed. Additionally, animal models used to test physiological hypotheses are reviewed along with their potential to illuminate DNA sequence–metabolic function relationships to inform therapies.