Latest from The Hindu
The Hindu
41 minutes ago
- Health
- The Hindu
New study shows cysteine withdrawal causes rapid weight loss in mice
Varghese, A., Gusarov, I., Gamallo-Lana, B. et al, 'Unravelling cysteine-deficiency-associated rapid weight loss', Nature (2025). In the 1930s, when scientists were beginning to uncover the molecular basis of nutrition, they already knew that proteins were a vital part of the diet, but they didn't fully understand why. More specifically, they didn't know whether all 20 amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, were equally important or if only some of them were crucial for human health. This question was answered in 1937 by William Rose, who conducted a series of experiments in which he fed rats individual amino acids instead of whole proteins. By systematically omitting one amino acid at a time from the rats' diets, he was able to identify which ones were truly indispensable. These he called 'essential' amino acids: they must be obtained through food because the body cannot produce them. The others, which the body can synthesise on its own, were deemed 'non-essential'. The nine essential amino acids are histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. Low-nutrition state Rose's work was one of the founding pillars of modern nutrition science. Nearly a century later, as the world struggles with rising obesity rates, this knowledge has become more relevant. Diets that promote weight loss without compromising overall health are being rigorously studied and tested around the world. One such study appeared in Nature on May 21, and it reported rather surprising results. The researchers found that removing just one amino acid, cysteine, from the diet of mice led to a dramatic and rapid loss of 30% of the body weight in a week. The results are surprising because cysteine is not an essential amino acid. Multiple researchers have explored the effects of essential amino acid withdrawal on weight loss. The idea behind these studies is that when these amino acids are removed from the diet, the body's inability to synthesise them reduces protein synthesis. The body interprets this to mean it is in a low-nutrition state and triggers fat burning. The effect has been reported in mice after deprivation of leucine, Isoleucine, valine, tryptophan and phenylalanine. Interestingly, the effect is also observed when two non-essential but important amino acids, methionine and cysteine, are withdrawn from the diet. Methionine and cysteine are the only two amino acids that contain sulphur. The reactive nature of sulphur allows these amino acids to play key roles in protein folding and function. However, despite their nutritional importance, studies in mice have demonstrated that methionine restriction improves lifespan and protects against metabolic diseases. Challenging to study Building on these findings, one study published in the Journal of Nutrition, Health and Ageing in 2023 showed that a diet with very small amounts of methionine and cysteine had a significant impact on weight loss in humans. The study reported no adverse effects of the diet on participants, suggesting that the results could be translated to humans. However, several questions remained to be addressed. Chief among them was the role of cysteine itself on weight loss. Studying cysteine withdrawal is challenging because it's a non-essential amino acid. Removing cysteine from the diet won't allow us to study the effects of its deficit because the body will simply make more. To circumvent this problem, the authors of the new Nature study genetically engineered mice so that they lacked the ability to produce cysteine naturally. This means, for these mice, cysteine is now an essential amino acid that must be obtained through their diet. Profound effect The authors proceeded to withdraw each of the nine essential amino acids and cysteine and methionine individually from their diet and observed the effects on metabolic health. None of the essential amino acids or methionine had an effect as profound as the omission of cysteine: 30.6% loss of body weight in one week on average. The authors also noted that the lost weight was recovered when they restored cysteine in the diet. The finding indicates that cysteine rather than methionine is more important among the sulphur-containing amino acids. The team also reported that the effect was observed only in genetically modified mice that couldn't make cysteine. In normal mice, cysteine restriction had no effect, since they didn't depend on their diets for access to cysteine. Importantly, the authors found that despite its effects on weight loss, withdrawing cysteine from the diet had other side effects, such as higher oxidative stress — the build-up of harmful variants of oxygen — because cysteine is a critical precursor for glutathione, one of the body's main antioxidants. Experts therefore advise caution. Dr. Jayashree Gopal, consultant endocrinologist at DiabEndoIndia, Chennai, said that while the paper is fascinating in terms of the diet's ability to convert white fat into brown fat, a marker of improved metabolic activity, it is still too early to translate the findings into clinical practice. 'Firstly, if you remove [cysteine], the body is going to anyway replenish it. Secondly, because it is part of a very potent antioxidant system, we should not be interfering with nature's balances until we know more about it. And third, we have to keep reiterating that the study is only done in genetically modified mice. Mouse physiology and human physiology are very, very different,' she said. Still, she added a note of optimism, 'To extrapolate from [the paper], it is a promising start. Maybe something may emerge from this 10 years down the line, but we are nowhere near that…' Dr. Gopal's words echo a fundamental principle of science, one particularly relevant to the study: while the research is commendable for uncovering the nuanced role of a single amino acid in fat metabolism, it also underscores the reality that scientific progress is often incremental. Arun Panchapakesan is an assistant professor at the Y.R. Gaitonde Centre for AIDS Research and Education, Chennai.
The Hindu
41 minutes ago
- The Hindu
ACB raids 10 locations linked to ex-irrigation chief in Kaleshwaram project case, official in custody
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Tuesday (July 15, 2025) began simultaneous searches at 10 locations across Hyderabad, Karimnagar and Zaheerabad linked to Muralidhar Rao, former engineer in chief of the Irrigation Department. The former official has been taken into custody by the ACB after a case of disproportionate assets was booked against the him in connection with the alleged irregularities in the execution of the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project. According to the ACB, searches are being carried out at Rao's residence in Banjara Hills and nine other locations linked to him and his relatives. Further investigation is underway.
The Hindu
41 minutes ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Bihar Congress condemns insult of Tushar Gandhi, great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi
Bihar Congress on Monday (July 14, 2025) strongly condemned the incident of alleged insult of Tushar Gandhi, the great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi by several people including the Mukhiya of Turkauliya village in East Champaran district. Mr. Gandhi, who launched the 'Badlo Bihar Nai Sarkar' (Change Bihar, New Government) from the Bhitiharwa Gandhi Ashram in West Champaran on Saturday (July 12, 2025), had reached Turkaulia in East Champaran as part of his journey on July 13. Mukhiya (village head) Vinay Kumar Sah and his supporters allegedly insulted Mr. Gandhi and asked to leave the event. While speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Gandhi said that he had to face personal attack as well. In the village he reached at the historic Neem tree, a place from where Mahatma Gandhi had once listened to the woes of farmers forced to cultivate indigo. Mr. Gandhi garlanded the spot and recalled the horrors of the past when British landlords used to tie farmers to the tree and beat them. Mahatma had visited this place twice. After garlanding the place, Mr. Gandhi was invited by the Mukhiya to speak in office hall of Gram Panchayat where the argument started when one of his associates raised questions on the Nitish Kumar government and spoke in favour of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress. Mr. Gandhi was accompanied by farmer leader Dr. Sunilam, socialist thinker Vijay Pratap Singh, Rashtriya Seva Dal activist Allauddin Sheikh, activist Feroze Mithiborwala, Jharkhand's Praveer Peter, Gujarat's Mujahid Nafees and many other national and state leaders. According to a villager, as soon as Mr. Gandhi and his associates started speaking on the frenzy spread in the country, social divisions and political failures of Bihar, the Mukhiya asked him to vacate the stage in a humiliating manner. Asked about the incident, Mr. Gandhi said, 'We had a plan to make awareness among the people in favour of Mahagathbandhan and this Mukhiya insisted me to speak over there. When our colleague Vijay Pratap Singh finished his speech, the Mukhiya raised an objection asking why we are doing this. He started shouting at us and then I requested not to shout.' He further said, 'I told him to calm down and speak politely but he kept on shouting. Then he said that I do not look like the descendants of Mahatma Gandhi and continue shouting. I asked him not to make any personal comments and if there are some issues, it could be resolved through intellectual talks. However, all my attempts turned futile and he warned us that I cannot do any campaign in his office. Then I have no other option to leave the place.' He also said that villagers also opposed the behaviour of Mukhiya and he addressed the people outside the Panchayat office. 'When the Mukhiya could not intellectually match, he showed his anger and absurd behaviour which was not acceptable,' Mr. Gandhi asserted. Bihar Congress State in-charge Krishna Allavaru, state president Rajesh Kumar, leader of the Congress legislative party Dr. Shakeel Ahmed Khan, and leader of the party in the Congress Legislative Council Dr. Madan Mohan Jha jointly attacked the state government. 'The incident is the murder murder of Gandhi's ideas. It is not just an insult to a person, but to an idea that was based on truth, non-violence and respect for dissent,' Mr. Allavaru said. Mr. Khan added that Nitish and Narendra Modi ji have thrown Gandhi's ideas and principles into the dustbin and have just borrowed his glasses for publicity.
The Hindu
41 minutes ago
- Business
- The Hindu
Why is corporate investment lagging behind?
India is going through a rocky terrain as far as industrial production and corporate investment are concerned. On June 30, the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MoSPI) released the monthly growth rate of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), which has slowed to a nine month low of 1.2%. This piece attempts to explain why industrial activity has not really picked up in any meaningful way since the COVID-19 pandemic. To be fair, it is not as if the government has not tried. They have tried every trick in their book, starting with a significant corporate tax cut to the tune of eight percentage points in September 2019 (from 30% to 22%), then a significant capex-push over the last few budgets, and lastly an interest rate cut recommended by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) recently. The 2024-25 Economic Survey expressed its dismay by stating that 'in terms of financial performance, the corporate sector has never had it so good … (but) (h)iring and compensation growth hardly kept up with it … Private sector GFCF in machinery and equipment and intellectual property products has grown cumulatively by only 35% in the four years to FY23, (which will) delay India's quest to raise the manufacturing share of GDP, delay the improvement in India's manufacturing competitiveness, and create only a smaller number of higher-quality formal jobs than otherwise.' Determining investment There is a famous debate between two Marxist scholars, Rosa Luxemburg and Tugan Baranovsky, on what determines investment in a capitalist economy which might be valuable to this discussion. To appreciate this debate and to understand the current predicaments of the Indian economy, we would like to present a basic representation of GDP and its determinants in a 'pure' capitalist economy, that is, one without any State intervention or access to external markets (see Box 1 for such a representation). GDP can be measured in different ways. What we demand generates production in the economy, with the other side being the income generated for the producers. So, from the income side, the GDP is a sum of workers' wages and capitalists' profits and, from the expenditure/demand side, a sum of workers' consumption and capitalists' investment. The purpose of this piece is to explain the latter. To get to the meat of the matter, we make a simplifying assumption that workers consume all their wages and capitalists do not consume at all (the argument does not change even if we remove this strict assumption). As Box 1 shows, wages and workers' consumption cancel each other out. What we are left with are profits which must be equal to investment in such an economy. This equation, however, does not tell us whether profits cause investment or investment causes profits. This innocuous relationship has led to quite a debate in economics, which continues to this day. To resolve this apparent chicken and egg problem, Kalecki, a Marxist economist asked a simple question: of the two, which one can the capitalists decide/control? 'Capitalists may decide to … invest more in a given period than the preceding one, but they cannot decide to earn more.' In other words, investment determines profits in a given period, not the other way round. But if this is the case, what is the limit to investment? Why can they not invest any amount they like? In fact, why should there be a problem of a lack of investment at all? Baranovsky argued that there is no limit to investment provided a certain proportion is maintained between consumption and investment sectors. He went to the extent to say that investment decisions need not be tied to any final consumption demand. An economy where workers' consumption is kept suppressed may still flourish with higher investment and higher profits simply by the decision of the capitalists to accumulate. Since capitalism and accumulation of capital is driven by profitability, investment provides the market for itself. Machines can produce machines to produce more machines. However, Luxemburg countered by saying that while it's true that investment leads to profits, it does not mean that any amount of investment will necessarily be undertaken. That would be a gross misreading of the relationship represented in Box 1. If the corporate sector were to collectively decide to invest, they would all be generating markets for each other, thereby, generating profits. But, unfortunately, investment decisions under capitalism are made by individual firms/capitalists and their decisions would be driven by their own assessment of demand for the products they produce. For example, in situations where the economy is not growing, it would be foolhardy for an individual capitalist to invest because adding capacity, when the existing factories are not running to capacity, would entail more losses. At the same time, if they were to invest collectively, the economy would have actually recovered. But coordinated or collectively planned investment is an anathema to capitalism. Investment, first and foremost, depends on the demand for the goods (whether machinery, toys or cars) it produces. It does not, and cannot, have a life of its own. A pure capitalist economy, without exogenous stimuli, cannot provide an endogenous impetus for its own survival. It requires an exogenous stimulus to kickstart the cycle of more investment and profits. The situation is particularly grave when the economy is in a downturn/slowdown because demand is down. The only way there can be a turnaround is if there is a turnaround in demand itself. The other factor behind investment is finance — internal (retained profits) or external (debt, public offerings etc). Lagging corporate investment The government assumed that with tax cuts and higher post-tax profits in the hands of the corporate sector, investment would pick up. But they have perhaps read the profit-investment causality wrong. Even others, who believe there can be an investment-led revival, miss the crucial point that Luxemburg was making. Investment will follow if there is a revival in process; it cannot lead the revival under conditions of slowdown. Investment cannot be made for the sake of investment. It requires the exogenous stimuli that Luxemburg was talking about. Where can that come from? There are two such exogenous sources — government expenditure and external markets (see Box 2). With a slowing global demand, which is perhaps going to worsen with the 'reciprocal' tariff regime under U.S. President Trump, government expenditure is the most important lever to kickstart the investment cycle. But then has the government not done enough in the form of capex spending? Government indeed has spent but it has so far not succeeded as much as expected. Why? The idea behind capex spending is that it would crowd-in private investment. This crowd-in could happen through a direct impact on investment as a result of better infrastructural facilities or by generating demand for goods produced by the corporate sector. While there is no denying that there is a possibility of crowding-in, there are multiple factors at play here. First, the crowd-in of the first kind, which is through better infrastructure, may be delayed due to the gestation lags these big scale projects usually have. For example, a port takes time to build and become operational. Second, while it is true that all such projects, whether big or small, create an immediate demand, how much of it is domestic demand and how much it is for economies outside depends on the import component of this spending. In other words, a part of this capex may be spent on imports, which simply cancels out without providing adequate domestic demand. Third, even how much domestic demand such a capex would generate depends on the labour intensity of these projects. If most of the money is spent on heavy duty machines, the employment generating capacity will be low, which translates to lower consumption demand. As for the incentive to finance investment through lower interest rates or liquidity, both of which the RBI has been trying, it is like putting the cart before the horse. Capitalists would take loans only if they believe they will profit from such investment to pay the loans back. With sagging demand, low costs of finance is not enough. As Keynes had famously said, 'whereas the weakening of either [speculative confidence or the state of credit] is enough to cause a collapse, recovery requires the revival of both.' This simple lesson needs to be learnt by both the RBI and the Finance Ministry if they want the economy to revive. Rohit Azad and Indranil Chowdhury teach Economics at JNU and PGDAV College, Delhi University, respectively
The Hindu
41 minutes ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Transition must be completed within a fixed timeframe, no room for negligence, says Yogi on school merger
Amid the ongoing school merger plan, U.P. CM Yogi Adityanath on Monday (July 14, 2025) held a meeting of the Basic Education department and added that pairing of schools is done to enhance quality and optimize resource use. 'The Chief Minister underscored the need to implement the school pairing system with a long-term, inclusive vision, highlighting its benefits for students, teachers, and parents through better resource utilization and improved education quality,' reads a statement by the U.P. government. Mr. Adityanath directed authorities that schools with more than 50 students should function as independent institutions to strengthen administrative efficiency, accountability, and academic oversight. Mr. Adityanath added in cases where school buildings fall vacant due to the pairing system, Bal Vatikas (pre-primary schools) be started in those premises. 'The transition must be completed within a fixed timeframe, leaving no room for delay or negligence,' said the CM, as per the government statement. The CM further stressed that no child between the ages of six and 14 should be left out of the education system and instructed that School Management Committees (Principals and Village Heads), should take full responsibility. 'Mr. Adityanath said effective implementation of the School Chalo Abhiyan is needed to ensure that every child is enrolled and attending school regularly. To support students, the financial assistance of ₹1,200 for uniforms, shoes, socks, stationery, and study material be transferred directly to the bank accounts of parents of students enrolled in council schools via DBT without delay,' added the official statement. Uttar Pradesh government initiated a plan to merge schools having enrolment of less than 50 students, with nearby educational facility to make the education system more functional and viable. As part of the consolidation plan, students from these schools will be accommodated in nearby facilities to ensure their continued education.
