Letters: Don't torture animals

With reference to the report, "Why women find it harder to lose weight decoded" (February 2), genetically manipulating mice to alter their brain functions so that experimenters can claim that it's easier for women than men to put on weight is both socially and ethically unacceptable. Mice are simply the wrong species to study if we want to tackle the growing obesity problem in humans.

Time and again, systematic reviews have found that experiments on animals lead to fruitless clinical trials that often endanger human life, cause millions of animals to suffer and cost a lot of taxpayers' money. There are better and more reliable ways to deal with the obesity problem than torturing and killing animals.

Encouraging people to give up meat and other animal products and replacing these with wholesome plant-based foods is one way. A study published in BMJ showed that vegan men weighed 5.9 kg less and vegan women 4.7 kg less than their meat-eating counterparts. We should conduct epidemiological studies on the expanding human population.

Dr Julia Baines London

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