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Fatty liver and high fat in blood is a disease and a risk factor for serious disease respectively.

This study appears to show that fasting is related to inducing the gene Slc25a51 and improving those factors.

I guess this contributes to the body of science around the potential health benefits of fasting.

ok - but the purpose of publicly identifying by name, a particular genetic component, is to own that function commercially somehow - am i wrong?

Eventually it may be a contributor to a commercialization, but now it makes it a target for research for others. This isn't patenting anything, it's scientists saying 'this is an important bit when it comes to the effects of fasting so let's focus on this.'

What would be scummy would be some pharmaceutical company discovering this, not releasing the information, and trying to develop (or worse, failing to develop) a drug on their own after internal research that was never released to the world.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com