Godlike Productions - News: Anti-fat pill could help keep the Weight Off

08:40 AM

News

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Breaking News Back

Anti-fat pill could help keep the Weight Off

ABC News

2008-11-28

A pill might replace that third helping of turkey at future Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. A newly-discovered chemical found naturally in our body blocks hunger and weight gain.

Mice and rats - and presumably humans - produce the chemical after eating a fatty meal. When researchers gave the rodents an extra dose, they ate less and shed weight, with no ill effects.

If similar tests in larger animals pan out, humans will be next, says Gerald Shulman, a molecular biologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut whose team discovered this new role for the molecule, called N-acylphosphatidylethanolamine (NAPE).

"We have this epidemic of obesity and we have very few agents that are able to effectively treat obesity," he says. "We'd be quite interested in trying a clinical trial to see if giving this back would reduce food intake in humans."

More, gimme more

Fatty foods, be they milkshake, French fry or Big Mac, have long confounded researchers seeking to explain how our body determines when it has had enough. Levels of fatty acids - the building blocks of junk foods - actually fall when people gorge on greasy foods, only to increase with hunger.

This peculiar behaviour prompted Shulman, Yale biologist Matthew Gillum and their colleagues to scour blood for compounds that shot up after a fatty meal.

NAPE fit the bill. Fatty acids in food get converted to NAPE in the gut before heading to the bloodstream. From there, the chemical races into the brain's appetite centre, in the hypothalamus, and shuts down neurons involved in signalling hunger, Shulman's team found.

Post-prandial nap

This explains why mice and rats injected with natural levels of NAPE act like they've gorged. They show little interest in stuffing their faces, and the normally athletic animals give in to languor.

"It's kind of like a siesta response. After an animal eats a heavy meal, it wants to sit in the corner and nap," Shulman says.

After five days on NAPE, rats ate 30% less food and lost a quarter of their weight. Rodents that didn't get NAPE actually gained a little flab. Shulman's team didn't notice any other permanent behavioural changes in the NAPE-fed mice.

Problems controlling production of the chemical could underlie diseases like obesity and diabetes, Shulman suggests. When their mice gorged on fatty foods for more than a month, NAPE levels in their blood no longer waxed and waned with each meal, but extra NAPE still suppressed their appetites.

Obesity pill?

It's too early to tell whether giving humans NAPE will offer the same benefits. Humans produce the molecules, and Shulman's team is now working to determine how they track with fatty food intake.

"I think they made a good case that [NAPE] should be considered among the factors the body uses to regulate food intake," says Michael Schwartz, an endocrinologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. "It does raise the possibility that this could be a new approach to treatment, but we know really little."

The molecular intricacies of NAPE's appetite-sapping effects have yet to be ironed out, and problems could emerge if the chemical does more than curb appetite. "It's hard to target the brain in a way that doesn't have side effects," says Schwartz.

Matthias Tschöp, an obesity researcher at the University of Cincinnati, says understanding how NAPE affects our appetite for fat would hopefully lead to new drugs that muzzle hunger, without eliminating it.

"We certainly don't want to decrease our appetite to the point that we can't appreciate Thanksgiving dinner anymore."

Email Article

Discuss in the Forum

Back

Vote For Godlike Productions!

Disclaimer:
This website exists for entertainment purposes only. The reader is responsible for discerning the validity, factuality or implications of information posted here, be it fictional or based on real events. Moderators on this forum make every effort to review the material posted on this site however, it is not realistically possible for our small staff to manually review each and every one of the more than 5000 posts GodlikeProductions gets on a daily basis. The content of posts
on this site, including but not limited to links to other web sites, are the expressed opinion of the original poster and are in no way representative of or endorsed by the owners or administration of this website. The posts on this website are the opinion of the specific author and are not statements of advice, opinion, or factual information on behalf of the owner or administration of GodlikeProductions. This site may contain adult content and if you feel you might be offended by such content, you should log off immediately.

Not all posts on this website are intended as truthful or factual assertion by their authors. Some users of this website are participating in internet role playing, with or without the use of an avatar. NO post on this website should be considered factual information on face value alone. Users are encouraged to USE DISCERNMENT and do their own follow up research while reading and posting on this website. Godlikeproductions.com reserves the right to make changes to, corrections and/or remove entirely at any time posts made on this website without notice. In addition, Godlikeproductions.com disclaims any and all liability for damages incurred directly or indirectly as a result of a post on this website.

This site is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied. You should not assume that this site is error-free or that it will be suitable for the particular purpose which you have in mind when using it. In no event shall Godlikeproductions.com be liable for any special, incidental, indirect or consequential damages of any kind, or any damages whatsoever, including, without limitation, those resulting from loss of use, data or profits, whether or not advised of the possibility of damage, and on any theory of liability, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of this site or other documents which are referenced by or linked to this site.

Some events depicted in certain posting and threads on this website may be fictitious and any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental. Some other articles may be based on actual events but which in certain cases incidents, characters and timelines have been changed for dramatic purposes. Certain characters may be composites, or entirely fictitious.

We do not discriminate against the mentally ill!

Fair Use Notice:
This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Users may make such material available in an effort to advance awareness and understanding of issues relating to civil rights, economics, individual rights, international affairs, liberty, science & technology, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C.Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
For more information please visit:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

This Disclaimer is subject to change at anytime.

Mail Webmaster with questions or comments about this site.

Page generated in 0.017s (1 queries)