Breakthrough in obesity battle as scientists discover molecule in the heart that speeds up metabolism



Scientists believe they have discovered a way to 'turn off' obesity in humans, by manipulating proteins found in the heart.

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center researchers have demonstrated, for the first time, that the heart can regulate energy balance in the entire body.

The breakthrough could lead to effective treatments for obesity in humans as well as for diabetes and heart disease.

Breakthrough: Scientists in Texas believe they have found a way to 'turn off' obesity.

'We discovered a protein that’s expressed in the heart, it’s a protein called MED 13, and it turns out that this protein regulates metabolism in the whole body,' UT Southwestern chairman of molecular biology Dr Eric Olson told CBSDFW.com .



Researchers fed mice a diet laden in fat, then ‘turned on’ the protein and found that, despite their high calorie intake, the mice stayed lean as long as the protein was ‘activated’.



The mice also showed an increase in energy expenditure. When the protein was removed the mice became obese.



Turning on the molecule also protected the mice against harmful blood-sugar changes associated with type 2 diabetes.

'Of course we went back and said ‘wait a minute we better check this again’ and have done it many times,' Olson said.



Study: Researchers found the mice stayed lean as long as the MED 13 protein was activated.

'It was really unexpected. We didn’t go into this looking for a way to treat obesity, it just was a serendipitous observation.'

Not only did scientists find they could make the mice 'resistant to obesity' but the study showed they could treat many of the other aspects of abnormal metabolism such as the struggle to lower cholesterol and improve glucose handling in these animals.

UT Southwestern are now using the protein to develop an obesity drug that might also be used to combat high cholesterol and Type 2 Diabetes.

But the drug is still a long way from being tested in humans, let alone hitting shelves, researchers said.



'Obesity, diabetes, and coronary artery disease are major causes of human death and disability, and they are all connected to metabolism,' Olson said.