The Coming Revolution In Weight Loss

July 9, 2007 · Filed Under Diet, Health, Innovation

Biotechnology is pretty much in its infancy. In the next few decades bioscience and biotech will have as profound an impact on our lives as the microchip.

A couple of recent research advances might totally revise the way we handle obesity and weight control. First: Penn State researchers have found a ’fat burn button’ that basically sends a signal to metabolize fat. It is an enzyme that is triggered when the body faces a deficiency of the amino acid leucine.

Organisms adapt metabolically to episodes of malnutrition and starvation by shutting down the synthesis of new proteins and fats and by using stores of these nutrients from muscle, fat, and the liver in order to continue vital functions. Cavener and Guo found that the removal of a single amino acid, leucine, from the diet is sufficient to provoke a starvation response that affects fat metabolism…”The starvation response we discovered can repress fat synthesis and induce the body to consume virtually all of its stored fat within a few weeks of leucine deprivation. Because this response causes a striking loss of fatty tissue, we may be able to formulate a powerful new treatment for obesity.”

Leucine is everywhere - meat, chicken, vegetables - so it’s hard to fathom how someone could easily reduce it to a sufficient level to trigger the metabolic response. Also, leucine is an essential amino acid - remove it for too long and you die. Perhaps the presence of the enzyme in question is adequate to trigger the response.

Then there’s this one from Georgetown Medical Center: researchers have found the mechanism through which stress causes weight gain. By blocking a Y2R receptor, researchers were able to manipulate abdominal fat in mice. The blockage is created by injecting a nontoxic chemical directly into fat cells.

In the paper, the Georgetown researchers describe a mechanism they found by which stress activates weight gain in mice, and they say this pathway ? which they were able to manipulate ? may explain why people who are chronically stressed gain more weight than they should based on the calories they consume.

This pathway involves two players ? a neurotransmitter (neuropeptide Y, or NPY) and the receptor (neuropeptide Y2 receptor, or Y2R) it activates in two types of cells in the fat tissue: endothelial cells lining blood vessels and fat cells themselves. In order to add fat selectively to the mice they tested, researchers injected NPY into a specific area. The researchers found that both NPY and Y2R are activated during stress, leading to apple-shape obesity and metabolic syndrome. Both the weight gain and metabolic syndrome, however, were prevented by administration of Y2R blocker into the abdominal fat.

If proven successful in humans it would virtually eliminate the need for cosmetic surgery procedures like liposuction.

Of course, these innovations would add fuel to the debate on whether procedures like this really cure anything, if the underlying reasons for the weight gain still exist - poor dietary habits, stress, low metabolism, etc. If anything it would suggest a two-pronged approach - a medical procedure to eliminate fat quickly, plus a long-term program to achieve better eating habits, more exercise, stress management, etc. Part of the difficulty in sticking with a diet is the loooonnnggg wait for results - if this can be augmented via biotechnology the long-term success rates might soar.

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