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Molecule Cuts Off Fat's Food Supply
hords writes "New Scientist reports a magic bullet that destroys the blood vessels that feed fat tissue enables mice to lose a third of their body weight. They first screened millions of peptides and identified one that binds to a membrane protein found only in the blood vessels supplying white fat. Then they hooked this up to another peptide that triggers cell suicide or apoptosis. Mice that had grown obese on a high-calorie diet were given daily injections of the combined peptide they lost 30 percent of their body weight in four weeks, whereas control mice given the two peptides separately grew even fatter."
These drugs work great for curing cancer in mice but don't work as well in humans. Given that, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't work well in humans for this either....
Only 1 comment so far? Oh right, like this story isn't of concern to most of us here.
"Derp de derp."
You perv. I was masturbating.
phat.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
...in five years after the entire world is hooked on it, we'll see, "Have you been taking MOLECULE DIET PILLS and started bleeding UNCONTROLABLY? If so, YOU could get up to $1,000,000 in damages! Call 1-800-NO-BLEED!" commercials.
Sure this might reduce fat cells and overall body weight, but does it do anything to control cholesterol levels, blood pressure, etc?
Giving this to patients by itself wouldn't do much to discourage healthy eating. You'd have to combine it with treatment for cholesterol (and other obesity symptoms). Of course, then people could get a dependancy on it, meaning healthy eating and exercise become pointless to them.
Just some food for thought (h0h0h0, its puntastic)
I swear, if I see another Slashdot comment with "It will be interesting to see"...
P e n i s ssss Enl@rger and Bûtt Redûcer Pilllllsssssss4534653475349238
I see all sorts of potential problems here. But here are two.
1. We don't know what else fat cells do in your body. They may have other roles than fat storage.
2. The health risk associated with obesity is not necessarily causative, just correlated. It has a lot to do with being sedentary. A fat person who takes these pills and becomes thin probably doesn't alter their health status much unless they take the opportunity to be less sedentary as well.
I bet the potential for abuse for cosmetic purposes, a la anabolic steroids, will be huge.
Er... encourage healthy eating, even.
Heh. How to contradict oneself in one's own post.
I swear, if I see another Slashdot comment with "It will be interesting to see"...
On the other hand, morbid obesity is probably the number one preventable health concern in America. I am doubtfull that this will ever be a useful drug (i.e. too many side effects, like DEATH), but if somehow it makes it's way onto the list of FDA approved drugs, this will have a MAJOR affect on the American lifestyle (even less exercising?). Whatever pharm company invents this will be filthy, filthy, filthy rich.
N.B. It usually takes about 10 years and close to a bilion dollars to go from a chemical/protein to an approved drug in America. Let's check back in a few years.
..........FULL STOP.
The genomes of rats, mice and humans have a lot of key differences in the basic metabolic pathways. That recent study explains a lot about why rat and mouse studies can be so wrong about human responses to drugs and things.
What's my brain made out of? Oh yeah, Fat. Let's mess with that, shall we?
http://radio.weblogs.com/0103443/
This could help people like me. Walking to my car or up a flight of stairs winds me. Losing a bit of weight is just the catalyst I need to be able to exercise more and STAY healthy.
You'd have to combine it with treatment for cholesterol (and other obesity symptoms).
Do you really believe that? oh well, I guess you do, judging from the rest of the post. How sad. That's probably a clue about a medical system where often enough symptoms would get treated instead of the actual disease. Here's a hint: treat the illness and the symptoms will go away (at least, when possible - and in this case the illness is what they're aiming at).
So how long until I'm spammed about this latest breakthrough in weight-loss technology?
The article said the drug only targets white fat. Virtually all of the "important fat" in your body (eg: membranes around the heart, blood vessels, brain, myelin, etc) is "brown fat". White fat (actually yellow), on the other hand, is the stuff that you find in love handles, beer bellies, fat-asses, and our other beloved yet misshapen body parts. The big difference between to two in your bodies eye is that white fat is for storage, whereas brown fat is for other things like protection and temperature regulation. Brown fat tissue doesn't really get "fat" (you'd be dead if it did) because thats not it's purpose.
:)
So as long as this drug really only does affect white fat, it should (theoretically) work. It certainly wouldn't be a miricle drug though. For one thing, it seems like it would attack fat indiscriminately. Your body stores fat in preferred locations, but theres no way to tell the drug to "just" go after your gut. It would eat fat away from your entire body - not just your problem areas. Imagine how many women would bitch after their boobs shrunk, their arm muscles were exposed, but their ass was still too big?
The other major problem with it is that it wouldn't be permanent. Fat cells don't have a specified size - they'll grow or shrink depending on the bodies need. So even if you kill off half your fat cells one week, theres no guarantee that next week your remaining fat cells will just start growing 2 times bigger (this is why lyposuction 'doesn't always work'). This means the drug probably wouldn't work for your "typical fat American kid", because their diets won't change. Sure, they could slice off a few pounds with a pill, but if they keep eating unhealthy their bodies will just pile more into their existing cells. If they go on the drugs repeatedly (or permanently), they could wind up with serious health problems - or worse.
The best audience for this type of thing would be people who eat healthy, but for whatever reason can't loose fat, or want to loose more of it. People like bodybuilders (for that even more ripped look), or possibly women who haven't lost pregnancy fat after birth, or something. For the majority of us who snack on chocolate cake and pop between our 6 course meals, it probably wouldn't work.
Sorry to ruin everyones day
Put down the diet Coke and the low-fat pork rinds. Try eating a balanced diet of reasonably-healthy foods (you know what they are) and get some exercise. You like competitive games? Play a sport. You like masterbating? Wear weighted wristbands and alternate hands. Try to incorporate a little extra effort into your basic daily life.
Just stop telling me that obesity is a disease or an illness or hereditary unless you've got the research to prove it.
...much of the bulk of women's breasts is white fat.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
I'm honestly a bit concerned as to how they plan to apply this to human subjects. Prohibitin isn't restricted to human white fat. It has other applications in the human body; it's a potential tumor suppressor protein, for one. If they cut this thing out, I'd bet my left arm that we'd see instances of breast cancer shoot up.
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"All hail the glory of the Hypnotoad."
Trust me being skinny is incredibly over rated. Where I work I am required to maintain a certain level of physical fitness and it isn't even all that high of a standard. Nonetheless I was a much happier individual when I was 40 to 60 pounds over weight according to the doctors. I do not see the theoretical extra years I may live, as a result of being uncomfortable for extended periods every week, as worth it. I would much rather live a happy and comfortable 40 to 60 years as a fatass than 100 years while regularly subjecting myself to exercising for nothing but the purpose of extending an uncomfortable lifestyle. That being said I used to ride mountain bikes a lot and am getting back to that as a hobby and I might get skinnier as a side affect. But I can not fully express my low opinion of exercising for the sake of being in shape.
Did you read my post actually? I never said obesity is an hereditary illness. It is an ill state of the body, but that's not all there is - there's an ill state of mind coupled with it. By thinning out one gets a chance to break the circle and do something about it. It's quite hard (though not impossible) to make a fat person - and I mean a really fat, round one - to change his/her ways. Your advice works for losing some 40lb (the belly type), but try telling that to someone who is 150lb+ overweight. Yeah, right. Too hard - that's why surgery is so frequent, if you can afford it. Mind you, I'm not saying this (if it ever makes it out of the lab) will actually cure everyone - but for many people it could be a chance.
You, on the other hand, were talking about treating obesity symptoms (2 posts up). All that does is hook you up on medication - it cures nothing. And, if obesity is the cause for those symptoms, what would happen if this condition goes away?
(side note: here's another losing weight advice: cook your own meals. More sating than fast-food waste, so you'll eat less and use more of it. Just in case you got the impression that I was disagreeing with your post entirely. It's just that I don't think there's an one size fits all cure for obesity)
ok, so I'm illiterate - can't tell different /. id's. sorry about putting words in your mouth. The GGP poster said that part about treating symptoms of obesity, which is funny and sad. Overeating is not an illness, it's a symptom. Obesity is a symptom, too much food and too little exercise are symptoms ... it all is about how far up the cause and effect chain you feel comfortable going - and what you want to call illness.
Whatever labels we put on this, I completely agree that the easy way out is the wrong thing to do--I never encouraged the drugs. It may be a good start for some, but most won't change their ways.
With phrases like "triggers cell suicide" used, you have to wonder what could possibly go wrong here?!?!? Fen-Phen, anybody?
Not that it's not neat, but this would be a highly useful application for destroying the blood supply to cancer cells. Cancer typcially coaxes the body to grow a whole bunch of new blood vessles to feed itself, so if those could be targeted instead, then we'd have something actually useful instead of just an excuse to pound down those big gulps and triple cheeseburgers.
But I can not fully express my low opinion of exercising for the sake of being in shape.
Amen to that. Most if not all the extra time you get to live (mind you, if any) is spent exercising. Heck, you might even live less when you subtract the exercising time, who knows *grin*
Fun stuff, by all means. But the 'just for the image' stuff is an ego trip.[*]
[*] geeks trying to get laid can qualify for an exemption
Take asthma, for instance. There is a distinct set of pathologies associated with asthma, but there is no single etiology, nor is there a set of etiologies which acount fully for the disease state (i.e., two people exposed to the same conditions may or may not develop asthma, even apart from genetics). Type I diabetes is the same way. There is a set of symptoms (airway hyperresponsiveness for asthma, or low insulin for diabetes) with an unknown cause. As that we do not know the cause, we must treat only the symptoms. Oddly, with the primary diseases, controlling the symptoms makes the disease undectable.
If you treat all of the symptoms of a cold, the cold is still detectable as adenovirus in in lungs (Use Koch's postulates). If someone has cancer and it is forced into remission, there are still ways to detect the presence of an old cancer (exceptionally difficult sometimes, but possible).
Not so with things like asthma, diabetes and primary diseases. Unless the symptom reasserts itself, the syndrome/disease/etc is undectable. Keep in mind that total ablation of the symptoms is rarely possible. It is only a theorectical concept except in mild cases.
Back on topic, there are many known causes for obesity the most common of which are eating too much or sitting on your ass too much. Most commonly obesity is a result of a combination of the two. Therefore, it could be aruged that obesity is not a primary disease, because we know the cause. The opposing arguement is that because we do not understand the motivations which cause the self destructive behavior (which is regarded as a symptom), the disease is primary. That is, since we do not understand the cause of the "eating too much" symptom, we must call it a primary disease. I disagree, personally, because I do not see self-destructive behavior as a pathological state in Man. It may not be beneficial, but I don't think it's abnormal.
Obesity can however be described as a cyclical disease, in that the disease state causes worsening of the state after a certain point. It is these people that truly need help. They essentially dug a hole that is too deep for them to climb out of on their own. These are the people who need intervention.
There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
Obesity can however be described as a cyclical disease, in that the disease state causes worsening of the state after a certain point. It is these people that truly need help. They essentially dug a hole that is too deep for them to climb out of on their own. These are the people who need intervention.
So true! Thank you for saying that... I think its something that those of us who aren't obese have a hard time understanding.
I spent a couple of years studying a class of proteins that might make good anti-obesity drug targets. I went in thinking that obesity wasn't really something that needed pharmaceutical intervention, i.e., that obese people should just eat less and exercise more. But I worked for a biotech company, and I researched what my bosses told me to research.
As I read the obesity research literature, I realized that its far from simple to lose weight. Its obvious what we need to do: burn more calories than we take in. However, it is surprisingly hard to do this, and not because obese people are lazy or unmotivated. Our bodies are essentially optimized to maintain body weight, even when that weight is more than it should be for optimal health. This may make sense from an evolutionary standpoint (we've spent most of our time dealing with food shortages, not overabundance), but it makes it very, very hard for a person to lose weight once they've gained it. This explains the yo-yo dieting effect: when you lose weight, your body is sending out very powerful signals that you are experiencing a food shortage crisis, and need to eat more. This of course makes it hard not to gain the weight back.
I'm working on something else now, but my little foray into obesity research made me very determined to maintain a healthy body weight! It is hard to make the time to exercise, and I like chocolate and beer far too much for my own good... but I know it would be much, much harder to return to a healthy weight than it is to stay there in the first place.
I agree with everything you said (or at least I don't disagree with it), except for the yo-yo dieting effect. Accepting your previous arguments, I would agree that it is a partial explanation. I think a much larger part, however, is that "dieting" doesn't work. Here's what many people do when dieting:
- Notice undesirable weight
- Change diet to counteract weight gain
- Over time, lose some goal-amount of weight
- Resume previous diet, now that weight is down
- Regain all of lost weight, due to going back to the exact eating habits that caused it in the first place
This society needs to forget about "diets". Diets do not help you permanently lose weight. You can't change eating habits temporarily and expect to lose weight permanently.
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Promoting critical thinking since 1994.
My health club recently installed individual 15" LCD screens on a whole bunch of treadmills and elliptical trainers... All have full cable access. Now, instead of sitting on the couch at home, I can watch Simpsons or Iron Chef and excersize while doing it. And if Simpsons isn't on, those screens are attached to a DVD/CD player, so I can bring a movie along. Makes my 30 min cardio session a breeze!
That's generally how exercise works. You get winded today. You get slightly less winded tomorrow. In a couple months you don't even notice you just ran up 3 flights of stairs.
No drug currently on the horizon is going to have those sorts of general well-being benefits for you. Nevermind the fact that you can fuck more... presuming you actually do get laid on an infrequent basis...
Then I visited a sports nutritionist (safe for work but kind of tacky) who said that I should be eating MUCH more than I had been--well over 3000 calories a day!--as well as exercising. The goal is to get the body OUT of thinking that it's dealing with food shortages so that it burns off the reserves. He makes other suggestions which, because I don't want to steal his business, I don't want to post here.
It's another counter-intuitive leap, and one which few people can accept because it goes against conventional wisdom (which in my experience is neither).
I managed to lose almost 100# before some sort of meltdown during which I slowly put most of it back on again. Now my schedule's in the shitter so not only can I not get to the gym as regularly as I should, but I'm ALSO not eating enough because I don't have the opportunities or resources to do so. But the technique has worked well in the past for others who DO have the time and resources to dedicate to the program.
I'm sorry if this sounds like an advertisement (maybe I shouldn't have posted that link). I just wanted to point out that the counter-intuitive behavior of the body has a counter-intuitive remedy in diet.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
While this is basically true in many cases, it is not the whole story. Think about someone who is 20 pounds overweight, and has been for years.
The previous diet was maintaining weight. The person changes the diet ("goes on a diet"), and loses weight. The person goes back to the original diet... this diet should now maintain the new weight. (A bit of a simplification, because the person's metabolism might have changed due to lost muscle or what not).
So why do people tend to gain weight when they come off a diet? There is quite a bit of evidence that when the person comes of the diet, his or her brain is sending signals to eat MORE than the "pre-diet" amount. Basically, research seems to indicate that the brain is freaked out by the calorie restriction, and is sending out stress signals. Through will power (and by having a plan to follow and a goal to aim for), the person overcomes the effects of these signals while "on the diet". Once the diet is over, the person relaxes, and figures they can eat more normally. Which they can, if all they want is to maintain their new weight. But due to the stress signals, they actually eat more than normal, and gain weight back.
I'm oversimplifying, mostly because I'm not working in this field anymore, and the details like the names of the stress hormones involved are no longer in my memory. But you get the idea. Also, I think most of the research has looked at diets that restrict calories enough to get weight loss of more than a pound/week.
My point is: you are right that diets do not tend to work. In fact, my opinion is that the best way to lose weight is slowly, so that your brain never thinks you are starving (research isn't clear about what rate will work here... it is probably different for different people). But more is going on when someone's weight goes back up after a diet than simply the effect of their previous eating habits.
If I lost 30% of my total body fat in a month, none of my clothes would fit !
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
And after 3 months of excercising 5 days a week at 40-60 minutes there is still that extra 20-30lbs that makes the workout hurt and continue the antimotivational problem. Yes, some people don't workout and won't and will use this as an excuse and some of us are battling some extra weight and would kill to be able to run 3-5 miles without pain.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Sorry, if you don't do any of the above, you will NEVER be able to run 3-5 miles without pain. hell, even when I was in the best shape of my life, a two mile run uphill nearly killed me. And that was BEFORE I had an extra 180 pounds of fat, bone and gristle on me.
I ustacud run 3-5 miles at a 7 minute pace with no pain... I can't now... and the weight is the problem... that and I can't even do a 7 minute pace anymore.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed