Discover two mechanisms of "fat burning" against obesity – 19/07/2018

The border around obesity narrows thanks to the discovery of two fat burning mechanisms that can pave the way for the development of future drugs capable of controlling overweight and contrasting which is considered a true epidemic, estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO), affects 2.2 billion people in the world

Discoveries, published in journals Nature and Plos Biology, clarify the mechanisms of awakening of dark adipose tissue – also known as "beige fat" – that is the part of the adipose tissue that Helps to burn energy to generate heat, white promotes its accumulation.

The first survey was conducted in the United States at the Dana Farber Institute of cancer research, where the group led by Edward Chouchani discovered that the cold favors the concentration, in the dark tissues, of a substance produced by the metabolism. called Succinate. The results obtained so far in mice are encouraging: it is enough for animals to drink "correct" water with succinate to prevent fattening, even when they are dieting. high in fat.

Students reconstruct the pathway of this substance, it is released into the bloodstream by muscle activity and from there captured and stored in the dark adipose tissue

The second experiment carried out in Spain, At the Carlos III National Cardiovascular Research Center (CNIC), he verified a second way to activate beige fat, this time by a protein called p38 alpha .

The group of Guadalupe Sabio individualized in the dark adipose tissue of more than 150 obese individuals and found that it works by slowing down another protein, called UCP1. The latter, also present in dark adipose tissue, activates cells that burn fat and develop heat.

Confirmation of this mechanism by the experiment in which mice genetically altered to not possess p38 alpha n. did not gain weight, even though their diet was high in fat . Scientists have observed that the elimination of molecular drag allows tissues to burn fat to run at full speed.

The next step will be to see if both mechanisms of dark adipose tissue activation work in humans

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