Well, we know how to do that, given the political will. The problem is the lack of political will, especially in the United States. And perusing in last week’s Nature their thumbnail descriptions of recent research results in other journals, I was vouchsafed an epiphany from on high on how to generate that political will.
The route to get there is a little circuitous, passing through mouse guts on the way. Bear with me, friends, for a paragraph or two.
The science blurb in question discussed an experiment in which the gut microbiota of mice raised in a cold laboratory were infused into mice raised in a cozy one. The recipients began producing a relative abundance of beige fat cells, just as if they had been chilling out themselves.
Okay, let’s fit that into a little bit of backstory. Scientists have known for quite some time that the bodies of mice, men, and other mammals contain two different kinds of fat cells: white ones, for long term storage, and brown ones (though Nature used the word “beige”, so maybe I’m not up on the latest lingo), which can respond rapidly to sudden energy demand. A higher proportion of beige cells results in a higher basal metabolism. The rule of thumb if you want to slim down: brown good, white bad. And a cold environment encourages the creation of a higher proportion of beige cells.
The new result, that the benefits of shivering can be transferred along with bacteria, is intriguing in its own right. (A modest proposal: I can envision a near future world in which impoverished folks, rather than selling blood or kidneys, can spend a few weeks shivering in cold rooms, and then sell their feces at boutique prices to be implanted into the tender plump derrieres of the overweight wealthy. The homeless in northern cities already have their cold rooms delivered to them for free.) But its relevance here is simply that it reminded me of the well established correlation: cold temperatures imply a greater abundance of beige fat, which implies a higher basal metabolism, which implies more calories burned. So exposure to cold is one key to losing weight.
Now, we’ve all been exposed to fewer and fewer cold days over the last sixty odd years. And as we all know, this has coincided with a period in which obesity has become epidemic in the good old US of A. Now as a sober reader of Nature, of course, I have no idea how much of that epidemic is attributable to the warmer climate; or even whether the amount of its contribution is measurable.
But dammit, those are mere numerical details. The American public isn’t interested in higher mathematics. And the direction of the climate’s influence on body weight is irrefutable science. It is time for us to get the word out!
Americans do not care, or at least so far have not cared, about the devastating effects of global warming on vanishing species, vanishing polar habitat, vanishing Sisland nations, or future generations. But we know what as a nation we do obsess about. And politicians will no longer be able to resist the pressure to battle climate change once the truth sinks in to Oprah watchers from sea to shining sea:
Global Warming Makes You Fat!
