In 1979, the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine published this seminal research review, an overview of similarities between the bodies of humans and swine. It emphasized how humans and pigs have similar physiologies when it comes to hunger, digestion and fat production. The review covered a wide range of topics, including both neural and hormonal influences on food consumption, lipogenesis, and body fat distribution.
The paper concluded that studies into swine obesity could point towards a better understanding of human obesity as well, and the review has since been the jumping-off point for numerous porcine studies. For example, a 2008 study of obesity from The Journal of Nutrition concluded that “[t]he pig is an exceptional restenosis model, and is emerging rapidly as a biomedical model for energy metabolism and obesity in humans.”
Then and now, human obesity has been recognized as a significant health issue. Porcine studies have yielded numerous insights, both for adult humans as well as children. Animal Biotech Industries, Inc, has proudly been a part of this process, with a twenty-year history of providing porcine organs, tissue, glands, blood, and more to researchers – and always with an emphasis on proper harvesting, packaging, and transportation to ensure the porcine tissues and organs arrive in prime condition.
Indeed, use of harvested materials rather than live swine has been increasing in recent years. This 2014 study from the US Department of Agriculture focused on the changes to porcine blood and organs from a high-fat diet, focusing on the pigs’ liver, pancreas, intestines, and brain. Use of juvenile swine allows these findings to be applied to juvenile humans as well.
Contemporary Research Using Porcine Post-Mortem Tissue
More recently, a 2023 study study of obesity from Nature Communications focused on the effects of repeated weight gain and loss on the adipose tissue in female swine, modeling the development and loss of adipose tissue in 3D. This research could have a significant impact on our understanding of “rebound” weight gain in people who struggle with dieting.
Porcine post-mortem tissue has become a crucial component in understanding human metabolism, and Animal Biotech Industries, Inc., can be your valued partner in providing the research materials you need. We have twenty years of experience in the harvesting, packaging, and safe transportation of porcine tissue.
We deliver to order and are happy to accommodate any reasonable request. If there’s a type of tissue you don’t see in our catalog, please contact us to discuss your needs.