Exciting news for fatties and athletes alike from Forbes:

NEW YORK – By attacking the same basic biology drug companies are targeting for new anti-fat drugs, researchers have genetically engineered mice with abilities far beyond those of normal rodents.

These “marathon mice” can run twice as long as their unmodified brothers and sisters– and, in a paper coming out right at the time of the Olympics, that’s leading to hand-wringing about the possibilities of applying this knowledge to create performance-enhancing drugs.

But these would not merely be performance-enhancing drugs to be abused by athletes. They might help stave the toll of cardiovascular disease, the No. 1 killer in the developed world. By treating the same gene these researchers modified in mice, drug companies are racing to create super drugs that would reduce multiple risk factors for heart disease, including high cholesterol, high triglycerides, and even high blood pressure.