Posted on 08/30/2009 3:27:00 PM PDT by RolandTignor
Researchers searching for a cure for obesity said on Thursday they have developed a drug that not only makes mice lose weight, but reverses diabetes and lowers their cholesterol, too.
The drug, which they have dubbed fatostatin, stops the body from making fat, instead releasing the energy from food. They hope it may lead to a pill that would fight obesity, diabetes and cholesterol, all at once.
Writing in the journal Chemistry and Biology, Salih Wakil of Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, Motonari Uesugi of Kyoto University in Japan and colleagues said the drug interferes with a suite of genes turned on by overeating.
"Here, we are tackling the basics," Wakil said in a telephone interview. "I think that is what excited us."
Scientists are painfully aware that drugs that can make mice thin do nothing of the sort in humans. A hormone called leptin can make rats and mice drop weight almost miraculously but does little or nothing for an obese person, for instance.
But Wakil, whose team has patented the drug and is looking for a drug company to partner with, hopes this drug may be different. "I am very, very optimistic," he said.
Fatostatin is a small molecule, meaning it has the potential to be absorbed in pill form.
It works on so-called sterol regulatory element binding proteins or SREBPs, which are transcription factors that activate genes involved in making cholesterol and fatty acids.
"Fatostatin blocked increases in body weight, blood glucose, and hepatic (liver) fat accumulation in (genetically) obese mice, even under uncontrolled food intake," the researchers wrote.
Genetic tests showed the drug affected 63 different genes.
The idea of interfering with SREBP is not new. GlaxSmithKline has been working on a new-generation cholesterol drug that uses this pathway.
After four weeks, mice injected with fatostatin weighed 12 percent less and had 70 percent lower blood sugar levels, the researchers wrote.
Now they plan to test rats and rabbits, Wakil said.
The drug also had effects on prostate cancer cells they said -- something that may help explain links between prostate cancer and obesity.
“Genetic tests showed the drug affected 63 different genes. “
that’s a bit scary
Diet alone doesn’t seem to cause all the changes that the surgery does.
I personally do not have a weight problem, with the exception that I was too thin when my thyroid was hyper.
A dear friend is looking into the surgery, and has recently been diagnosed with Type II. She has lost considerable weight, but her blood sugars are still high, and she and her internist are planning a surgical consult.
Agreed.
Surgery is not without side effects. Please tell your friend to be careful. Surgery may lead to osteoporosis...
http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_12594487?nclick_check=1
Also, I believe a paleo diet will definitely lower blood sugars, as it has mine. It’s worth trying before taking the irreversible step of surgery.
Grind ‘em up and put ‘em in Big Macs. HoooHaaaH!
The reason it is so hard to get rid of fat is that for the vast majority of the time humans have been on Earth, “fat was life”. If you lost too much fat you would die. So the body has all sorts of mechanisms to create and protect its fat.
Fat is also an important part of the immune system. Within fat are clumps of cells called MAST cells, that when signaled or irritated produce chemicals important to the immune response against disease. The more fat you have, the more MAST cells you have, and more than proportionally. So a fat person has far more than a skinny person.
In turn, when MAST cells are irritated, some of the chemicals they release are “pro-fat”, making it easier to gain and keep fat.
Within the last month, researchers have discovered that if a fat mouse is returned to a normal diet, but given MAST-inhibitor chemicals, they quickly lose weight until normal weight.
MAST inhibitors are also sold OTC in drug stores, for two other purposes. As nasal spray and eye drops. Unfortunately, these only subdue local MAST cells, not those in the body, and they are not well absorbed in the digestive tract. So even if you drank a whole bunch, it probably wouldn’t do much.
However, otherwise this stuff is very safe and effective. And this is why there is going to be a rush of other fat-loss products, that may be far less effective. If they don’t sell them soon, nobody will want them because they can buy a drug that works.
A serial link to the abstract about fatostatin from Chemistry & Biology. IIRC, it lowers the good HDL-cholesterol too.
Discovery Of 'Fatostatin' A Turnoff For Fat Genes
FReepmail me if you want on or off the diabetes ping list.
She is aware of all the possible complications, and has not yet set a date, although she is thinking seriously about it.
So where does the energy that is in the food go?
It has to go somewhere.
ping
They also recently discovered that catalase, or the low levels of it causes gray hair.
...it’s called “Dietandexercise.”
Actually, the ideal regiment for many of us, is “Dietandexerciseandstatinsandprobablyniacin”. :-)
Really, in three months just the first three dropped weight by 20% (into the “ideal range”), and reduced LDL by ~80%, total cholesterol by 55% and triglycerides by 38% so it can work wonders. Now, if the HDL was as easy to raise....sigh. I fear it will take a bit of slow release niacin for that(but at least the therapy is available.
There’s really no reason to go with any more rat pharmaceuticals. They’ve already provided a wonder drug for mankind (WARFarin - Warf...Rats. Get it?)
Nah, all those things previously mentioned will help out a lot but ya’ gotta’ work at it to make ‘em work in concert. It’s way more than we had 20 years ago, and that’s a good thing.
I’ll take it...
I believe the diet has something to do with the diabetes going away.
No, the changes occur sometimes within a day of the surgery and it is postulated that it has something to do with cutting into the stomach itself.
So does it affect Type I diabetes or Type II or both? The source does not say.
bttt
I have found that newsmax tends to publish some way-out-there health stories and claims. You have to take what they print about health with a grain of salt... but, I think you could say that about most health-related stories. Everybody seems to have some astounding study to report these days.
Speaking of such... here’s one that might interest you. :-)
Kudzu extract may be useful in treating metabolic syndrome
http://ihealthbulletin.com/blog/2009/08/30/kudzu-supplement-metabolic-syndrome/
Excellent.
When people ask me how I lost weight I say it was the ELE diet.
When the looks of confusion pass over their faces I elaborate: "The Eat Less and Exercise diet."
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