Food For Lean Muscle And Fat Loss - Lean Gene Found in Mammals
A "thin gene" holding flies to get fat works the same way in mammals.
Humans carry the same gene. Therefore, boosting the Lean-gene function can be a future obesity treatment, say researchers Jonathan Graff, MD, PhD and colleagues from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
"of worms to mammals, this gene controls fat formation," said Graff in a news version.
The gene is called Adiposo or ADP. Fifty years ago, an Yale researcher discovered a fruit flies strain that did not have the ADP gene. The flies put a lot of weight - which helped them survive the region prone to the hunger they lived.
The graff team showed that genetically designed mice to express the ADP gene in fat fabrics have become thin. In addition, they have shown that ADP works in a dose-related manner. The more ADP activity exists, the animal the animal becomes.
"This is good news for potential obesity treatments because it's like a volume control instead of a light switch. It can be turned off or down, not just turned on or off," said Graff. "Eventually, of course, the idea is to develop drugs to direct this system, but that in the coming years."
Such drugs will have to face a safety obstacle. Graff and colleagues notice that ADP is found all over the body. Especially high levels are seen in the brain and testicles.
"These tissues could be affected and deserve significant scrutiny," researchers warn.
The findings appear in the September issue of the journal cell metabolism.
