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Originally Posted by kipperthefrog
I have autism and a super high metabolism. That means I don't gain weight as easy. and some girls want to loose weight. Would stem cell research cure autism? Would it be able to boost peoples metabolism to be like mine and help girls loose weight?
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We have to find out what causes autism before we can work on a cure. So far it doesn't seem to be a problem with bad tissue so much as how the brain processes information. There's still so much to learn about this condition.
Current weight loss research is focusing on some of the hormones that control hunger (e.g. leptin) and calorie absorption in the gastrointestinal tract. For those who truly do have a slow metabolism due to thyroid, that gets treated with thyroid medication. You can't boost metabolism artificially (e.g. with extra thyroid hormones) because it makes the heart overwork and drives blood pressure up. It is more likely that treatments for obesity will focus on medication to target the specific hormones rather than using stem cells, besides the obvious 'eat fewer calories, higher quality food, and exercise more'.