Using a fat-fighting hormone to fight obesity - New Study

Main Category: Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness
Article Date: 18 Jan 2004 - 0:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

Many fat people have a natural resistance to a fat-fighting hormone, overcoming this could be the first step to overcoming obesity.

In a new study, researchers found that when rats were cured of this resistance they ate less food and did more exercise (they underwent gene therapy).

'It was a voluntary reduction in energy intake,' says researcher Satya Kalra, professor of neuroscience at the University of Florida. 'The refrigerator was open, but they decided to eat less. That's the interesting part of it.'

Leptin

Leptin reduces appetite by stimulating the brain to give a feeling of fullness. Leptin is a hormone, it is produced in animal fat cells. However, fat people (and animals) have too much fat. This means that they have too much leptin and this reduces its fat-fighting effect.

Researchers wanted to see whether it was possible to make rats overcome this leptin resistance through gene therapy. The scientists had two groups of rats (15 in each group). One group was fed a diet containing 11% fat while the other group's diet was on 45% fat and of a higher calorie.

80 days later the rats on the high fat diet had increased their weight by 20%. Then, the scientists gave six of these obese rats an injection of a gene that produces leptin directly in their brains. Another six were given a placebo.

50 days later the placebo rats were still 20% heavier than at the beginning of the whole thing. The rats that had been given the letpin gene had dropped in weight to only 3% above their weight at the beginning of the whole study.

Amazingly, both sets of rats were then offered the same amount and type of food. It seems that the rats that had been injected with the gene that produces leptin directly in their brains opted to eat less than the others, and they did more exercise as well.

• Additional
• References
• Citations