Rat Models of the Metabolic Syndrome

For some diseases, a line of causality exists in which a given antecedent elicits a particular disorder, which can be treated by interrupting a specific pathway of events. Most biomedical scientists have uncritically adopted the “line-of-causality” metaphor, and have therefore selected for study animal models of disease in which this metaphor by design must work because the models are chosen accordingly. Although peer review rewards the use of such models, and research with linear models of disease is often intellectually satisfying, it is doubtful that such an approach in the end will lead to breakthroughs for the treatment of the major diseases facing humankind today, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.