转基因细菌 z-bo 2020-11-03 382

　　In the United States, more than one-third of adults are obese. Obesity is difficult to treat with drugs, especially the severe side effects of weight-loss drugs make many drugs impossible to popularize. Surgery has always been an option for weight loss, but what if we could cultivate a harmless genetically modified bacteria and use them to replace weight loss drugs?

　　A group of researchers believes that it is feasible to rely on genetically modified bacteria for weight loss. They recently successfully tested a genetically modified E. coli on mice. The weight loss effect is very obvious, and the mice that have acquired this bacteria successfully lose weight compared with those who have not acquired the bacteria.

　　The scientists selected a gene from a special E. coli and Arabidopsis plant that reminds bacteria to release hormones when the body encounters obesity. This hormone is passed to the brain through the blood, and they tell the brain to suppress appetite and stop eating. These old-fashioned treated mice had been eating high-fat food for eight weeks, but they had eaten less than those of the control mice.

　　The mice that were treated with genetically modified E. coli ate less and gained less weight than those that were not treated. Not only that, they are less likely to have health problems, such as diabetes and insulin resistance. The most obvious is that these mice are still affected by the genetically modified bacteria even after 4 to 6 weeks after the experiment.

　　So is it possible that this genetically modified bacteria is the magical weight loss drug we are looking forward to? It may be possible that we only need to obtain this genetically modified bacteria quantitatively every month, and it has almost no side effects. But we need to know that mice are not humans, so only time and clinical human trials can tell us the results.