💾 Archived View for gmi.noulin.net › mobileNews › 535.gmi captured on 2021-12-05 at 23:47:19. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
by Madeleine CooreyMon Apr 28, 6:59 PM ET
Australian scientists may have discovered how to help people lose weight
without cutting back on food, a breakthrough that could pave the way for
fat-burning drugs.
Researchers in Melbourne found that by manipulating fat cells in mice they were
able to speed up the animals' metabolisms.
They found that when a particular enzyme, known as angiotensin converting
enzyme (ACE), was removed, mice were able to eat the same amount as other mice
but burn more calories and therefore gain less weight.
Animals without the enzyme were on average 20 percent lighter than normal mice
and had 50 to 60 percent less body fat, senior researcher at the Howard Florey
Institute Michael Mathai said.
"It is very clear that they do have less body fat," he told AFP.
Mathai, who is also a lecturer in nutrition at Victoria University, said the
slimmer mice also appeared to have less chance of developing diabetes because
they processed sugar faster than normal mice.
He said the research, to be published Tuesday in the US-based Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, could be used to develop drugs to assist
weight loss.
Drugs which impair the action of ACE already exist and are mostly used to
combat high blood pressure.
"The drugs are out there because they are used for hypertension," he said.
"So we know their safety and their tolerability. What we don't know is whether
or not they will work in humans. And we don't know whether it will work in all
obese humans."
Mathai said it could be a question of finding the right dosage of hypertension
medication, or developing a new type of drug of the same class, to be used as
weight-loss pills.
"This might be one way in which you can increase metabolic rate in combination
with managing nutrition to limit the intake of calories," he said.
Mathai said the research, conducted at the Howard Florey Institute, Victoria
University, La Trobe University, Deakin University, the Baker Institute and the
University of Melbourne, was yet to pinpoint why the genetic manipulation led
to weight loss.
"Because we deleted the gene, the gene is gone from the whole body, that means
that it is gone from all tissues including the brain," he said.
"And so we don't know whether it's a direct effect of the deficiency in the
tissue or whether it's something coming from the brain."