14 DAY TRIAL // A couch potato’s biggest dream ever is showing signs of becoming real, as researchers have determined that blocking a gene in mice stops the weight gain and prevents all affections associated with obesity. What’s even better, Med Page Today informs, this happens without the mice working out more and even when on a high-fat diet. If this also applies to humans and a pill that can block the gene can be developed, this can be the end of the obesity pandemics, researchers hope.
Alan Saltiel, who led the study in mice at the University of Michigan in the US, initially set out to establish the exact connection between obesity and diabetes, so understandably he was more than surprised when he realized he managed to prevent the onset of obesity altogether. In mice, at least. By blocking the gene in question, known as IKKE, the mice no longer gained weight no matter what they did, meaning, even if they did not exercise more or if they continued to be on the same high-fat diet as before. All this was possible by means of a compensation in their organism, which meant they just burned more calories.
“We’ve studied other genes associated with obesity – we call them ‘obesogenes’ – but this is the first one we’ve found that, when deleted, stops the animal from gaining weight. The fact that you can disrupt all the effects of the high fat diet by deleting this one gene in mice is pretty interesting and surprising. Perhaps most interestingly, the mice burn more calories even though they aren’t eating any less or exercising any more.” Saltiel says of the findings of the study.
Further research is now needed to determine why this happens, and only then to even consider the possibility that the same could apply to humans as well, although researchers are optimistic. If so, they could also create a pill that would block the gene, which would mean people would stop gaining weight without even having to move a single muscle for it (well, aside from those needed to lift the hand to the mouth to take the pill, of course).
“The specificity of the apparent actions of IKKE, the nature of the enzyme, and the profound resistance of the knock-out mice to the high-fat diet, make it an especially appealing drug target for the treatment of metabolic disease.” Saltiel concludes by saying.