Robert Bradbury wrote:
> Another alternative would be a drug to trigger additional protein
> breakdown (and re-synthesis). Since this process requires significant
> amounts of energy, your body would pull the required resources from
> the fat cells (just as exercise does). The advantage of this is
> that the metabolic activity would be more distributed and the
> pretein recycling would increase the new(undamaged)/old(damaged)
> protein ratio, leading presumably to a better functioning of the
> organism.
One idea I've been toying with is an implantible device that generates
(a little) power from breaking down fat. It could release the energy
outside the body as heat, or - if the infection problems with a device
that permanently crosses the skin prove difficult - via induction to
some external battery. If such a device could be built and marketed
(perhaps only via prescription at first, to avoid abuse by anorexics),
there would seem to be a huge (so to speak) demand for it in the USA
alone, easily enough to recover costs of development.
This would be version 1 of an implant which could actually do useful
things that require electrical energy - for instance, an implanted radio
receiver, or maybe a pacemaker - but would never require external
charging. (Granted, such a device would have to be very low power
compared to what most devices consume, but there would be non-zero power
available...)
Now, if only I could find a way to get someone with the necessary
biochem knowledge, greed, and resources to build/test/get FDA approval
on/sell such a device to consider this idea.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:06:49 MDT