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La Lettre
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diets may not be extended beyond a certain period of time because they would result in a critical loss
of muscles, and notably heart muscle. We therefore see how desirable it is to elucidate and mimic this
mechanism in the treatment of severe obesity.
Another example of a physiological mechanism of interest that can only be studied in nature is that of the
king penguin incubating its egg. Male and female feed at 300 to 400 km offshore; fasting is thus associated
with incubation, for which they take turns on dry land. Usually, it is the male that performs the incubation
during the last 2 or 3 weeks, with the female then coming back on hatching time to feed the chick. The female
may however not come back in time, especially because of the warming associated with El Niño, whose
effects are felt as far as the Southern Ocean, and may thus drive its prey even further away, over 200 km
further south. It is remarkable that the male is then able to keeps its chick alive for a week, feeding it with
marine prey it keeps intact during those two or three weeks into its stomach despite a temperature of 37-
38° C. With the support of the Fondation de France, we have been able to associate this ability to preserve
food with the presence of a small antibacterial and antifungal protein. Once its structure established and
the synthesis of its molecule made, it has been shown it was very effective against two of the main agents