Yogurt May Give You Giant Testicles (If You're A Mouse)

Now we know Mighty Mouse's snack of choice.  

While testing the effects of yogurt on obesity, scientists at MIT made a pretty awesome discovery. Male lab mice that were fed yogurt had bigger testicles than non-yogurt-eating mice.

According to Scientific American, the mice were divided into two groups–one was fed standard mouse food and the other was put on a high-fat, low-nutrient diet meant to mimic the crap most Americans stuff their faces with every day. For half of each diet group, scientists supple­mented meals with vanilla-flavored yogurt.

 

Yogurt-eating male mice in both groups began projecting their testes outward and had a certain “mouse swagger.” So basically, they became the Clint Eastwoods of the rodent world. The testicles of the yogurt-eating mice turned out to be 5 percent heavier than those of mice fed standard mouse food and around 15 percent heavier than those of junk-eating males. Holla. 

And it wasn't just that the yogurt-fed mice got to parade around with their newly massive balls. In mating experiments, yogurt-eating males “inseminated their partners faster and produced more offspring than control mice.” The lady mice that ate the yogurt gave birth to larger litters and weaned those pups with greater success. Scientists believe that “probiotic microbes in the yogurt help to make the animals leaner and healthier, which indirectly improves sexual machismo.” What's more, both male and female yogurt-eating mice also had luxuriantly silky fur.

The findings could have implications for human fertility, the magazine notes. Yogurt: the new breakfast of champions.