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Parasites may teach us how to lose weight

Larvae are unable to store fat

Parasites can teach us how to stop the production of fat in our bodies. That is something we would like to learn, considering the growing worldwide problem of obesity. Parasitic insect larvae live off the fat of their hosts and are even able to manipulate the host to produce more fat. These larvae have lost the ability to store fat somewhere during the evolution. Evolutionary biologist Bertanne Visser investigated how. Perhaps we can learn from this how to store less fat in our bodies.

For more information, please read the PhD thesis.