A Yogurt-Rich Diet Gives Mice Bigger Balls [Science]

A Yogurt-Rich Diet Gives Mice Bigger Balls [Science]:
Looks like probiotics do more than just keep Jamie Lee Curtis regular. A recent MIT study looking at yogurt's effects on obesity actually revealed a pair of surprisingly useful "bonus" effects.
The team, led by cancer biologist Susan Erdman and evolutionary geneticist Eric Alm fed a population of mice (40 males, 40 females) either high- or low-fiber meals and supplemented half of each group's diet with yogurt. The yogurt was supposed to help stave off age-related weight gain, however the researchers also noticed something else.

First, the scientists noticed that the yogurt-eating mice were incredibly shiny. Using both traditional histology techniques and cosmetic rating scales, the researchers showed that these animals had 10 times the active follicle density of other mice, resulting in luxuriantly silky fur.
Then the researchers spotted some­thing particular about the males: they projected their testes outward, which endowed them with a certain "mouse swagger," Erdman says. On measuring the males, they found that the testicles of the yogurt consumers were about 5 percent heavier than those of mice fed typical diets alone and around 15 percent heavier than those of junk-eating males.

What's more, the swaggering male mice put their bigger packages to good use, inseminating their mates faster and producing more progeny per pregnancy. Yogurt-fed females also gave birth to and successfully raised larger litters. According to Jorge Chavarro of Harvard, who is looking into connections between yogurt consumption and human male fertility, "So far our preliminary findings are consistent with what they see in the mice." So if you're planning on making babies, you going to want to load up on Yoplait. [Scientific American via Boing Boing - Image: schankz / Shutterstock]