Animal studies routinely appear in the scientific literature linking dietary factors to the overall health of the organism. For example, today I found this article investigating heart disease in fruit flies. Just a couple of the red-flags I found...
"Their study, published November 3 in the journal Cell Metabolism, also demonstrates that manipulating TOR protects the hearts of obese flies from damage caused by high-fat diets."
"In this study, flies fed a high-fat diet of coconut oil became obese and exhibited many of the same secondary symptoms as obese humans, including heart dysfunction."
http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-uncovers-molecular-link-obesity-heart.html
It seems like a dangerous extrapolation to assume that these results translate to humans (No way I'm turning on coconut oil anytime soon!). Does anyone have references for studies indicating that animal metabolism is UNLIKE human metabolism? Forgive my lack of knowledge in this domain. A simple example being that cows eat grass, and we don't. Some researchers assume that results translate to humans but there must be evidence showing otherwise? Seems like a gray area to me!
