NIH Radio
Intestinal stem cells can supersize the gut – 1
Narrator: This is NIH Health Matters. I’m Joe Balintfy. The thinking on adult stem cells is changing.
O’Brien: They can actually cause organs to grow.
Narrator: Lucy O’Brien is an NIH funded researcher at UC Berkeley.
O’Brien: What we found is that in flies, intestinal stem cells cause the intestine to grow when the animal eats. So when a fly eats a meal like a rotten banana and this banana arrives in the intestine, the intestinal stem cells sense this. They go into overdrive and they make extra intestinal cells and make a bigger organ.
Narrator: She adds that this research could have implications for obesity and diabetes. For details, visit www.nigms.nih.gov. Health Matters is produced by the NIH, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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