Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by kilroy123 | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

kilroy123

So is there a virus out there that will do the opposite? Or maybe some gene modifications that could be made?

View on HN

Well you could always get a tapeworm parasite, though I doubt that would be sound medical advice ;)

Reminds me of this guy[1] who claims to have cured his own Ulcerative Colitis with roundworms.

1. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/12/09/worms.health/

Maybe, here's one (with a few human subject): http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v4/n10/full/tp201498a.html

Here's another (in mice, not sure if they've tried people yet): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22458428

The best thing people can do to change their gut flora is to cut back on sugar and increase dietary fibre.

Gut flora engineering is in fact a prominent line of research many groups are studying. The idea of tailoring the gut flora to reduce sugar uptakes is a very compelling one.

But it's also raising hard questions about why we think it's okay to sell so much sugar in foods...

  The best thing people can do to change their gut flora

Diet change can, at best, improve the ratios of beneficial vs harmful microbes, but it can't introduce missing microbes that aren't there at all... hence the fecal transplant.

I'm more curious as to what the goal of increasing fat mass would be for the virus. You'd think that it has to be part of its reproductive cycle somehow. Are the viruses hiding out inside of fat cells?

That doesn't have to be a specific goal; it could be just a side-effect. Viruses "goal", in general, is to make more copies of itself.

One possibility is that a host that gains weight easily will be more resilient in times of famine.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com