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Sometimes the news really drives you mad! One day a fry up is good for your skin, the next it gives you double vision! Should you have that Danish pastry or would a fried chicken leg be healthier? This is your chance to ask direct and personal questions to two engaged scientists that have made fat and sugar their daily research staple.
Is sugar the enemy?
Richard Mackenzie
(Reader)
On a global front, obesity has nearly tripled since 1975. In 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults were overweight. Of these over 650 million were obese. We are continually bombarded with information on what is good and what is bad for us. Until recently, we were told that fat is bad for us and that ‘low fat’ food is good. Now we are told that sugar is our enemy and we should avoid it at all costs. We know that obesity leads to type 2 diabetes but what causes obesity? Is it as simple as eating too much or is it related to the amount of sugar in our diets?
Fighting fat with fat; can “browning” keep us lean?
Nicholas Hurren
(Lecturer)
The average adult is now carrying more body fat than ever before, resulting in a poorer quality of life, and an earlier death. The recent discovery that adult humans have brown fat within their bodies that can be activated to burn the harmful white fat (producing heat), has been seen as a possible obesity treatment. This talk will introduce the concept of browning (converting white fat to brown), and discuss strategies shown either to cause browning or to activate existing brown fat in humans.
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