Is A Denial Of Service Attack Ethical Because The Company That Does Them Says So
Is Cost Per Action The Answer?

VCs Jumping On The Fat Bubble Bandwagon

Venture Capital

from the obesity-is-a-trend dept

Tue, Jul 19th 2005 10:30am — Mike Masnick
VCs like to look for big trends that they can use to project out a few years in order to try to back the companies that will be huge -- rather than just decent businesses (or, worse but more likely, failures). And, right now, one gigantic trend in the US is the fact that we are all, well, gigantic. It seems that the latest lemming-like move in VC investing is to pump money into ventures looking to trim the fat, literally. VCs of all kinds are investing in a variety of companies that have different strategies for fighting the "obesity epidemic." Of course, it wasn't that long ago that we heard stories about VCs being interested in food franchises as well -- so maybe this is yet another opportunity for VC hedging.
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  1. identicon
    dorpus, 19 Jul 2005 @ 10:43am

    Heh

    There haven't been any basic science advances shown to improve human obesity. As experiments have shown, lab rats have much simpler fat metabolism than humans -- just give them leptin, and they will stay skinny forever. Human biochemistry isn't so easily fooled; leptin only works for a short time, after which humans develop a resistance to it.

    We cannot just give experimental drugs to humans without testing them on lab animals first; on the other hand, lab animals do not adequately resemble humans.

    The only real solution to the fat problem is to treat it the same way we dealt with tobacco, through extensive public health interventions, limiting advertisement and access to fatty foods. But in today's world, people have a greater phobia of such government interventions.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 Jul 2005 @ 12:58pm

    Re: Heh

    if only there was a real solution to the dorpus problem lol

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    blorpus, 19 Jul 2005 @ 10:51pm

    Re: Heh

    AC: Dorpus's post is actually on topic for once. Maybe it's a pseudo-dorpus masquerading as a true dorpus.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

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