Yzabelle Bostyn
A TEAM of Spanish researchers has discovered a new way to ‘burn fat’ and fight global obesity levels.
Led by Guadalupe Sabio, the researchers have found a new way of burning ‘brown’ fat, the body’s way of regulating temperature in cold conditions.
They discovered eliminating a protein known as MCJ could be an effective treatment for obesity, an illness which affects up to 650 million people.
While white fat stores calories, brown fat burns them. Abundant in babies, it was previously thought this fat was almost nonexistent in adults.
Now, the Spanish research team’s discovery there is more than expected in adults could unlock a new treatment for disease.
The research, by the Spanish National Oncologists Centre (CNIO) and the National Centre for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC), found removing the MCJ protein could burn fat and improve metabolism.
As Sabio explains to SINC, ‘the degree of MCJ activation in each person is related to their metabolic health’.
When the researchers removed MCJ in obese mice, they found that the animals lost weight and generated more heat.
This replicates previous observations that activating brown fat protects against obesity and metabolic diseases.
“The cells were eating fat and glucose, burning everything that came into them,” said Sabio.
It is thought that removing MCJ makes mitochondria (the part of the cell responsible for burning fat) think they are cold when they are not, mimicking the fat burning process used to keep the body warm in cold conditions.
“The results could be the same in humans,” said Sabio, hinting that the therapy could be used to treat obesity.
However, one of the biggest hurdles for this treatment is how to neutralise MCJ without harming other organs, though so far it has proved beneficial for both the heart and liver.
In this study, a modified virus was used to eliminate the protein in mice, but Sabio suspects using nanoparticles to directly target fat tissue could be a better solution in humans.
Either way, she claims the research is a step towards ‘one of the most interesting steps in the fight against obesity.’
