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Thread: Reducing hypothalamic AGRP by RNA interference increases metabolic rate and decreases

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    Default Reducing hypothalamic AGRP by RNA interference increases metabolic rate and decreases

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC134599/

    Reducing hypothalamic AGRP by RNA interference increases metabolic rate and decreases body weight without influencing food intake

    So for those of you who don't know me, I'm a big of transhumanism. I stumbled upon this just recently and thought you might like to discuss it / read it for your own private pleasure. The whole idea around this is gene therapy (manipulate our own genes), and RNA Interference (knock out gene expression - (process by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product.)

    Essentially what scientists have discovered is a way to decrease body weight, without any change in food intake (eat whatever you want). This is applicable only to mice at the moment, but the science behind this is badass, and hope we can extrapolate this to the human population (imagine the field day companies would have).

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    The difficulty with gene therapy is that it is a great idea to edit genes or insert/delete genes that cause disease etc. However what if this gene is responsible for more than just weight regulation? We could edit someone's genes and then they have children who may be susceptible to a different disease altogether that we have never encountered. By this point it is too late as we will have already treated many people with gene therapy.

    It is such an interesting topic but we can't just start deleting and inserting genes where we feel it is right. Sooner or later these therapies will cost money and people will pay to have genes inserted or deleted to the point where they can pay to become a superhuman who can see in the dark, or who has amazing conditioning and strength due to insertion of a gene which upregulates muscle recovery/homeostasis. It's a very dangerous road to pursue.
    Current scripts

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    I think it's a bit scary. I wouldn't read too much into it as results aren't usually translatable directly from rats to humans without some major caveats. If it were true though, it'd be great for a time. Until someone takes it to the next level and starts making eugenics actually a thing... which is something I'm sure the 99% would not want to have happen...

    That is probably where the future of biology is going though, so it is good to see some progress. Maybe someone will figure out some ethical solution to the pay to become superman thing before it actually becomes a reality a few decades to a couple hundred years down the line.

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    Why must people mess with the nature of things, especially the human bodies?
    wasn't the purpose of living to take in as much energy and spend as less as possible for survival? of course things have changed now, but I think a much better use of time can be on something that actually endangers the human species.

    of course there are probably hundreds, or thousands of applications that can do such things, but they've been shut up / bought out by governments / companies

    now that I think of it... yeah it's probably safer to find ways to make life easier / lazier...

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