Baby’s First Diet Pill

Very lucid thought. This could not possibly backfire or have unintended consequences.

Here is the idea behind this brilliant approach.

We are programmed soon before and shortly after we are born. This programming determines our appetites.

"Why do people get fat? We habitually divide the causes of obesity into two categories: genetic predisposition (having lots of overweight relatives) and lifestyle choices (eating too many chips or even, according to a recent study, having fat friends). A new field called developmental programming maintains a third possibility: that obesity, like many aspects of our physiology, can be traced to the months just before and after birth, when the brain and other organs are still fine-tuning themselves."

Where does this thinking take us?

"But what if it is possible to change the settings? Michael Cawthorne, director of metabolic research at the Clore Laboratory at Britain’s University of Buckingham, argues that if we act early enough, we may be able to program babies’ metabolisms to provide permanent resistance to excess pounds. He and his colleagues are trying to develop a baby formula with an astonishing property: to turn newborns into those enviable people who can eat what they want without getting fat."

So what can we do?

"Cawthorne would supplement infants’ formula with leptin during the period in which their metabolisms are being calibrated. He speculates that this kind of treatment 'will help people cope better with an abundant food environment.' Experiments with animals provide support. A study led by Cawthorne’s associate Claire Stocker found that rat mothers given leptin during pregnancy and lactation produced offspring that were resistant to obesity. "

This concept has legs.

Off-the-shelf solutions to current social problems are already available.

To prevent unwanted pregnancies, researchers suggest that all female infants be fed anti-ovarian hormone (AVH) in formula. "By wrapping AVH in micellular envelopes, digestive acids would be rendered ineffective in deactivating AVH. Ovarian development can be prohibited and the societal disease of unwanted pregnancies can be eliminated, together with fertility."

Other social problems, such as rape are similarly treatable, researchers say. "Male infants, fed saltpeter would be rendered incapable of having, let alone maintaining an erection, the usual prerequisite for rape."

Now, if they could only come up with an anti-stupid idea hormone.