Fast food diet participants paid to purposely gain weight

(WXYZ) - At first glance it sounds great.

Get paid thousands of dollars to eat your favorite fast food on a daily basis.

It's part of a new experiment conducted by doctors at Washington University Medical School to measure exactly what fast food diets can do to your health. 

The experiment requires each participant to add an additional 1,000 calories in fast food fare to their daily menu, in an effort to gain five to six percent of their body weight.

The five restaurants chosen for the study were McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC.

One study participant, a 50-year-old female nurse started out weighing 170 pounds. She gained 16 pounds over the course of eight weeks and was compensated a total of $2,650, including $50 to lose all the weight again. 

Participants can earn up to $3,500, depending on how long it takes to gain the weight.

Do you think gaining weight is worth the cash? Take our poll above!

The reason behind the study? Doctors are trying to understand why weight gain leads to diseases like diabetes and hypertension and how that relates to levels of fat in the liver and muscles.

Results of the study could also help find therapies for obesity-related diseases, and work on rats alone simply isn't enough, according to doctors.