New York Times Online
“Shiva belongs to a colony of monkeys who have been fattened up to help scientists study the twin human epidemics of obesity and diabetes. The overweight monkeys also test new drugs aimed at treating those conditions.”
A recent article in the New York Times, “Today’s Lab Rats of Obesity, Furry Couch Potatoes”, adds further fuel to the fire that carbohydrates are a big part of the obesity epidemic in America. The monkeys are great models to study obesity because they exhibit many of the same behaviors as humans but scientists can track, control, and document their true caloric intake.
The monkeys get high fructose corn syrup fruit drinks, peanut butter, and a stiff dose of carb pellets (cereal). About 1/3 of their calories come from fat. The controlled environment makes for an interesting playground to discover what humans might have been “made to eat,” in an ideal world.
One of the researchers, Dr. Hansen, states, “To suggest that humans and monkeys get fat because of a high-fat diet is not a good suggestion.” Commenting on the diet of one of her monkeys, one of the fattest ever known, she states he ate “nothing but an American Heart Association-recommended diet.”
I just don’t understand how we can keep pushing that same diet to people struggling with coronary artery disease, diabetes, and various cancers.
Researchers generate obesity, clogged arteries, and diabetes in monkeys using our standard American diet all so they can test out new drugs, gadgets, and gastric bypass techniques to help stop the weight gain!
Something is very wrong here…
I’m curious as to what happens when you give the monkeys 80% fat diet and stop the fructose fountains.
I think that should be their next item on the agenda. Of course with funding from pharmaceutical companies, device companies, or General Mills why in the world would anybody look at a dietary change for a cure…