Monday, November 5, 2012

Fasting Hormone Helps Mice Live Longer

Brought to you by: Emilynne

en.wikipedia.org

4 comments:

Kallie said...

I thought this article was a little interesting. It was interesting that if mice think they're starved, they live longer. I think this is because the mouse produces more energy since it thinks it is not getting food for energy, so it has enough energy to live longer.

Chloe said...

I think that this article was really cool. It is kinda like an article I read a couple years ago about a scientist who put mice in a bathtub The first 7 died, but the next 7 didn't die because he took them out for 30 seconds after 2 minutes being in the bathtub. They stayed in the bathtub for another 2 hours. I think this is because these creatures have hope of having a chance to live. They probably think this because if they eat, they think that the scientists will feed them again after some time so their body doesn't give up on them. I also think that they can live longer because if there is no food, then your body isn't converting that potential energy into mechanical energy, so your body is kinda at rest.

Nicholas said...

The article says that fasting lengthens life for many species, but not humans. I think that this might be an advantage for the non-evolved. Our body needs food to work at all, which is why it is unhealthy to be underweight. If this is the case and since we are more evolved it doesn't work for us, why is that it. Creatures need food to survive. I can see how eating too much is bad for you, but how is eating nothing better for you. I think that it is interesting how the females had a bigger benefit than the males. I wish they would have gone more in-depth on why this happens. It also seemed like the whole hormone-producing vs the non hormone-producing was backwards. It seems weird how if they are healthier they will live for a shorter amount of time. I would have to say that this was a fascinating article, but it could have explained more.

Miles said...

I think it is very cool about how mice's lives can be lengthened by a calorie cutting hormone. I wonder what this hormone can do in the future. Maybe it could help other animals or maybe even humans live longer. I still don't understand how cutting the mice's calories can help them survive. I thought that this article was very interesting, but I would have liked to know more about how this works and what are the unhealthy side effects.