Well, that’s special.

Some recent studies where lab rats ate eachother’s butt fudge might just reveal why America’s so effing fat.

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What it comes down to, essentially, is our belly microbes – and how diverse they are. It’s said that variety’s the spice of life. And it’s apparently also the key to staying lean when it comes to your tummy and the creatures living in it.

Pretty much, they took twin women – one of whom was obese and one of whom was lean – and studied their gullet bugs. Even though Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumpy were identical twins, it was noted that the big girls’ microbiome diversity level shared an inverse relache with their bathroom scale numbers. Contrarily the skinny twin’s tummy creatures were brimming with a far more blended assortment.

But correlation doesn’t mean causation

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(duh.)

What this situation clearly needed was some humanized rodents.

So, they took to the lab, raised genetically identical baby mice, and thusly inundated them respectively with stout and slender ladies’ microbiota. And then they sat back, and watched one turn into a Gisele Bundchen and one turn into Violet Beauregarde.

Then they put Thickey Mouse and Mini together. In a cage.

Soon, the fat one got slim… and it wasn’t cause she caught some psychological skinny bitch syndrome either. The thing about rodents is that they like to eat poop. While that’s pretty disgusting, that’s what led to the slenderizing of the fat rat. Why? Because that nummy number two held a number of germ types.

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(Miscellany: it does the intestines good.)

So… wait a second. Why don’t we all already have the good gut bacteria then? Do I have to literally eat shiz to diet? No. I mean, you can if you like, but the problem is (in large part) our food and medicine, basically. Because of antibiotic over-prescription, good bacteria like H. pylori that used to party like P. Diddy non-stop in our gastric juices… are far more rare. And that’s a damned shame because that’s the bacteria that modulates your Cartman appetite.

Then, there’s the food itself.

Yes, our processed sludge contributes to our corpulence as a nation, and it’s not just cuzza how bad it is for you. In fact – in this case – it’s not even about what manufactured meals give us too much of. It’s what they don’t give that robs us of a microbial mix.

Meanwhile, back in the lab… they’re laughing at us behind our fat asses so much so that they dubbed the worthless slop they fed the mice, the “Western Diet”. While on a steady diet of Supersize Me goop, no amount of doo-doo binging would reduce their weight.

“So, what type am I?”, you ask.

That depends. Did you come out of a vagina or drink from a boob? Apparently, we grow our germ forests from the day we move outta our moms’ snatch attic. Kids raised on formula and sliced from the womb get less of the good stuff our mom’s normally pass as we pass through her labial curtains and drink from her udders. Because those who emerge unnaturally and drink non-mom milk tend to become blimps later in life, it’s thought that our initial bacterial indoctrination has a massive effect on body mass itself.

(Oh good. Something new I can blame on my mom instead of taking responsibility for my life.)

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Then can we just take a pill? Like we do for everything else?

No, lazy. But a high fiber fresh diets will liven up your gastric soiree.

Still, scientists are studying this internationally. There’s the Puerto Rican Punani study – where they swab C-section infants with their mom’s vajay juice and compare it to a c-section control kid. (Dude, I’d be so pissed if I grew up to be Peter Griffin because my mom had Bogarted her beaver bugs). And there’s the Ams-turd-am study – where they shuffle dung from little to big tummies surgically. No word yet on how that’s going. Or if anyone’s lived through it.

And of course, back home, we’re trying to tell which specific strains tend to take up residence in skinny folk so that we can make something to counteract obesity-tendencies that supplement (not replace) healthy living. But if you think they’re going to condense something for you to sprinkle onto the vacuum packed T.V. dinner bathed in butter and salt and god-knows-what-else, then you might as well just eat your skinny roommate’s excrement like the lab rats do now. I mean, it won’t do anything.

But it’d probably be better than your current situation mystery meal.

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