Eat to Live or Live to Eat?

Life in most of the world’s urban societies is increasingly sedentary. People neither toil in the fields nor hunt for food. With little need for mobility, there’s easy access to plenty of food that is loaded with sugar, fat, preservatives, and calories. The so-called ‘‘western diet’’ has brought with it a host of metabolic problems that we have probably never encountered in our evolutionary history. Diet fads, one after the other, seem to only complicate our eating habits further. Worse still, you can now live with the revelation that the donut you just gorged on is not going to bode well for your great-grandchildren. But all is not lost! This issue’s Select covers some exciting new studies that uncover novel regulators of metabolic health with promising therapeutic prospects. Bon Appétit!