Is weight loss science finally getting its s**t together?

Are you as confused as I am about the science of weight loss?

Friends and enemies change so frequently, you feel like you are stuck in perpetual middle school. Carbs, fat, wheat, protein, and exercise are ‘in’ one day and ‘out’ the next.

It’s enough to drive you into the arms of Jenny Craig.

Americans are trying to get their act together, but while obsessing about diets and weight loss, bodies balloon into historic proportions.

Is there hope for the hopeless in the newest research movement? Is it possible the science of weight loss is finally getting its s*’*t together? In the form of a ‘poop pill?’

It all started when scientists observed that when specially bred germ-free mice ate the gut bacteria of thin people, they stayed slim. But when these same mice ate the gut bacteria of obese people, they got fat.

This oozy news intrigued an endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, prompting her to launch a study to see whether these findings could apply to humans.

Before you run to the powder room with nausea and cramps, let me remind you that medicine transplants all sorts of organs and cells from humans, both living and dead. Would you be willing to accept a creepy guy’s cornea from his lazy eye if it meant you could restore your vision? I’m betting you would.

And people who are obese are now desperate, having failed all known therapies, including bariatric surgery. What if it isn’t their fault? What if it is a matter of obtaining the right bacteria to populate their gut?

So what will happen when the public gets wind of this scoop? I predict people will retreat to the water closet, and take fecal matters into their own hands, bypassing the careful screening and criteria for the study.

What sorts of things will they do?

• At the pool: 
  • Take the plunge when they notice all lean swimmers doing the crawl.
  • Gulp pool water to provide large inoculation of Slim Jim.
• In a restaurant:
  • Insist on an underweight server, and give an extra tip to have him skip the antibacterial hand cleanser.
  • Bypass the bar and head for the high tops with stools
  • Order hamburgers rare, topped with shiitake mushrooms
• At home:
  • Consume foods with known fecal contamination, e.g. peanut butter, wheat, and leafy greens.
• Develop a ‘brown’ market that will develop and distribute new products
  • New and improved chocolate sprinkles
  • A line of spices called: Sugar and Spice and Everything Not Nice
  • Specially processed ‘chips’
  • Pot raised in potties
  • Indoor miracle grow gardens in ‘cans’
• Career options to consider:
  • Janitor
  • Septic pumper
  • Day care provider
  • Porta-potty pick up person

In the meantime, watch for results of Dr. Yu’s study in the Annals of Internal Medicine. I believe it may result in a new cliché, ‘Eat s**t and die-t.’

What do you think? Would you take the ‘poop pill’ if you knew you could lose weight? With any luck, if you do take the pill you won’t remember s**t.