Effective way of burning fat without exercise - Japanese breakthrough

Main Category: Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness
Article Date: 07 Feb 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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Japanese scientists say they have found a way of getting rid of excess body fat without the need for exercise.

This breakthrough could lead to improved and more effective treatment for obesity and diabetes.

When a cellular receptor in muscles known as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor delta, or PPARD, is chemically activated, it induces fat consumption in the muscle, according to research led by Tokyo University professor of metabolic medicine Juro Sakai.

Receptors are proteins that translate a certain type of stimulus into nerve impulses.

Calling PPARD 'a fat-burning sensor,' Sakai, who leads a research group at the elite university's Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology, said the finding offers 'the possibility' of a drug that could end obesity.

The drug could also be a treatment for diabetes as the PPARD activation also increased obese laboratory mice' sensitivity to insulin and helped reduce their blood sugar levels, he stated.

'I believe the development will come in the not-so-distant future, although we have to clear high hurdles for application in humans,' Sakai said.

'Even if you do not exercise, metabolic activity accelerates, leading to weight loss,' Sakai said.

'Of course I do not intend to dismiss the notion of taking exercise as it is still the best way, 'to get rid of fat', he added.

The study found weight gain among mice given high-fat feed, whose PPARD receptors had been activated, was about 40 percent less than untreated mice on the same diet.

The activation of PPARD caused no excessive weight loss in non-obese mice, nor did it trigger any type of excessive eating professer Sakai stated.

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