by GT
When Nina Teicholz and I were discussing working together on a Substack newsletter, I suggested a name for it that I’d always joked I’d someday use: “Let’s Pretend This Is Science….” Let’s just say, wiser heads prevailed. Still, that’s the phrase that comes to mind when I write about some of the research in the field, most recently the studies that try to determine what foods make mice fat.
This week’s contribution is a paper in the journal Obesity suggesting that mice get fat eating high-fat diets because they shift into what the authors call hedonic overdrive. In short, the mice eat for the pleasure of it not to maintain energy balance and so a healthy weight. My latest newsletter discusses many of the obvious issues with this research, none more important than the question in the title: do we care why mice get fat?
Here’s my latest Unsettled Science Substack article