04 Feb 2019 --- Specific cells in the guts of mice slow down metabolism and can eventually contribute to obesity, diabetes, hypertension and atherosclerosis. These findings, published in Nature, could have important implications for the prevention and treatment of these kinds of metabolic diseases in humans. The energy-saving mechanism evolved over millions of years to provide an advantage to organisms when food was scarce, the researchers note, but it may now be backfiring as food is so abundant.
