'Good' Fat may Help to Treat Obesity: Study
Scientists have found two genetic triggers for producing
healthful "good" fat in mice, pointing the way to a new treatment for
obesity, according to a pair of studies published Thursday.
Harvard University researchers also made the startling discovery that
these so-called brown fat cells -- which burn calories rather than
store them -- originate from the same immature stem cells that
produce muscle.
While many people would prefer to have less of it, fat is essential
for health. It helps regulate our metabolism, and keeps our bodies
warm.
But there are two kinds of blubber.
White fat is composed of molecules that hoard calories, and has
contributed to a worldwide crescendo of obesity with consequences
ranging from diabetes to heart disease.
Brown fat, more prevalent in infants than adults, is different -- in
fact far more different that scientists realised.
To find out what chemicals in the body trigger its production, a team
of researchers led by Yu-Hua Tseng of the Joslin Diabetes Center at
Harvard Medical School experimented with genetically modified mice.
They discovered that a protein called BMP7 was critical to the
process: without it, brown fat cells failed to develop, causing the
mice to die. Added in artificially high doses, BMP7 had the opposite
effect.
But white fat, Tseng found, relied on different albeit related
chemicals to develop.
More importantly, he proved that white and brown fat do not originate
from the same precursor cells.
In the early phase of their development, the two types of fat cells
appear to be identical, so most scientists had assumed they derive
from a common source.
In the second study, Bruce Spiegelman of the Dana Farber Cancer
Institute, also at Harvard, found out -- to his "huge surprise" --
that brown fat comes actually from the same stem cells that produce
muscle tissue.
The key is a "master regulator" protein called PRDM16 that determines
which way these adult stem cells will develop.
"I think we now have very convincing evidence that PRDM16 can turn
cells into brown fat cells, with the possibility of combating
obesity," he said.
Though mature humans have relatively little brown fat, it is thought
to play a critical metabolising role.
Spiegelman said that finding a new potential source for this "good"
fat -- the adult stem cells, or myoblasts, that exist to replace
mature muscle cells -- open a path for boosting its calorie-burning
action to combat obesity.
Obesity is occurring at epidemic rates worldwide and is a major risk
factor for type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, a bundle of health
problems including clogged arteries, heart attack and stroke.
Both studies were published in the British science and medical
journal Nature.
Source-AFP
SRM
http://www.medindia
40859-1.htm
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StemCells subscribers may also be interested in these sites:
Children's Neurobiological Solutions
http://www.CNSfoundation.org/
Cord Blood Registry
http://www.CordBlood.com/at.cgi?a=150123
The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
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