Diet-in-a-Pill Promises Weight Loss with Synthetic Genes

The NANO Supermarket's (speculative) Nano Slim-Fast Diet uses a tasty cocktail of leptin, peptide YY, and other hormones to naturally control your appetite. Researchers have now concocted a similar diet aid in the form of an implantable "circuit" made from synthetic genes. The circuit, consisting of several genes that govern satiety, monitors the fat levels in blood. When the circuit detects excess fat, it releases a chemical telling the brain that it's no longer hungry.

With the help of these slimming implants, obese rats lost a significant amount of body weight, despite having unrestricted access to a high-fat diet. Least you worry about the circuit going into overdrive and the now-slender rats wasting away, the genes are assembled to allow hunger to return once blood fat levels are back to normal. With the holiday season coming up, maybe the best present you can get your family is a pill full of Slim-Fast genes.

Via Io9.