Helping Obese Mice (humor)

OK, I admit it. I am a worrier. I fear about huge points, like local weather change. But I additionally fear about smaller points, like what I might do if we had 5 straight days of snow so I could not get out and I used to be virtually out of bathroom paper and occasional.

[Correction: Being out of coffee is a big issue.]

But one factor I do not fear about so much is overweight mice. As lengthy as they do not eat all my meals, I do not care how svelte my resident mice are. So once I noticed an article titled “Watermelon supplements bring health benefits to obese mice,” I did not precisely race to the grocery store to purchase watermelon for my live-in mice.

I did marvel why the researchers even thought of giving mice watermelon within the first place. Were they sitting round within the shade some scorching day consuming watermelon when one among them mentioned, “Say, I wonder if watermelon would solve the urgent national problem of obese mice? Might they have a better self-image if they were healthier after eating this fruit?”

Then I learn on. “The study was funded by the National Watermelon Promotion Board.”  Ah, that explains it.

Food business teams assist analysis that takes some product they’re pushing, extracting one thing from it, and giving a number of the extract to mice or individuals, hoping it is going to present some profit. If it does not, you may by no means hear about it: “Kale extract doesn’t help diabetics” is a headline you may by no means see in your newspaper, ever. If it does assist, the story will probably be trumpeted in every single place: “Kale extract may cure diabetes in platypuses.” Even if the impact is miniscule and the take a look at organism uncommon, the PR specialists hope you will not bear in mind the small print, simply “cure diabetes,” so you may purchase a number of it.

Thus except you are shedding sleep over the issues of fats mice, if you see information tales lauding some widespread meals as an weight problems or diabetes remedy, see who sponsored the research. If it is a meals business group, take the findings with a grain of salt.

Unless, in fact, you are on a low-salt food plan.