Skip to main content

Eat more, move less and don’t gain weight by blocking a marijuana-like chemical in the brain



Unless you're a rodent, it's probably too early to get excited about the possibility of being able to eat all you want, be a couch potato and still not gain weight, but new research using a strain of specially-modified mice indicates that just such an unlikely scenario might one day be possible. Recently, a team of scientists from UC Irvine (UCI), Yale and Marche Polytechnic University in Ancona, Italy discovered they could bring this metabolic miracle about in the lab by blocking the actions of a marijuana-like compound that regulates energy metabolism.To bring about this hypermetabolic state, the researchers, led by UCI pharmacology professor Daniele Piomelli, altered forebrain neurons in mice to reduce production of a substance called 2-Arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG). Evidently, all mammalian brains contain 2-AG, a naturally-produced endocannabinoid compound. The team believes this plays a role in regulating the forebrain neural circuits that take part in energy dispersal.
When these 2-AG-deprived mice were observed, they consumed more food and were more sedentary than their unmodified cousins but gained no extra weight, even when fed high-fat chow. Especially interesting was the absence of any signs of the symptoms collectively known as metabolic syndrome, such as high blood pressure and elevated blood sugar - conditions that can eventually lead to heart disease and obesity.
"We discovered that these mice were resistant to obesity because they burned fat calories much more efficiently than normal mice do," Piomelli said. "We had known that endocannabinoids play a critical role in cell energy regulation, but this is the first time we found a target where this occurs."
So what, exactly, was going on? Mammals have two types of adipose (fat) tissue: white and brown. The white stores calories while the brown burns them for energy and heat production. In the mice with reduced 2-AG, their brown fat became hyperactive and began converting into heat at a greatly accelerated rate compared to normal mice. That's information that could potentially turn the multi-billion dollar weight-loss industry on its head.
Obviously, we can't go around modifying human brains to produce less 2-AG in an effort to create a race of lazy, svelte gluttons, but could some kind of weight-gain prevention drug based on this data one day find its way into the pharmaceutical pipeline?
"To produce the desired effects, we would need to create a drug that blocks 2-AG production in the brain, something we're not yet able to do," Piomelli cautioned. "So don't cancel that gym membership just yet. But as you hit the treadmill, think about the added health benefits if you could train your brain to make fewer endocannabinoids."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

10 URLs to Find Out What Google Knows About You

Google is much more than just a search giant. It is also home to many of your favorite products: Gmail, YouTube, and Chrome, just to name a few. Apart from that, it also offers many products to help you  keep track of your data . Most of these are  hidden deep  inside the My Account dashboard, which many users don’t really know of. These hidden tools  may reveal interesting details  about your usage of Google’s many services. We’ve compiled a list of important Google URLs of some  hidden tools  that carry information of what you did with Google, mostly from the searches that you have made on their many products, the voice searches and typed out Google searches that you have made. Are you ready to  find out what how Google knows about you ? 1.  Google Dashboard Google Dashboard offers  transparency and control over the personal data stored with your Google Account. You can  view  and  manage the data gener...

Edible water balloons that could get rid of the need for plastic bottles

In case you didn’t know, bottled water is destroying the planet. We know that we need to be drinking plenty of water. It’s important. But the plastic bottles they’re sold in are terrible for the environment. One solution is using reusable bottles that you can fill from any nearby taps instead of buying a new bottle each time. Another solution is much more exciting. A group of engineers from Skipping Rocks Lab have developed a wonderful thing called The Ooho!. It’s a globe filled water that you can pop in your mouth whole. The outer shell is made of algae, so it’s edible and biodegradable. Meaning there’s no need for packaging or plastic – the globes of water are self-contained and ready to consume. Exciting, right? Plus they’re wobbly and they look cool, which is always a bonus. The team have now created a crowdfunding page to make their creation available to the public, with goals of selling The Ooho! at festival and marathons within the next 12 m...

New "Super-Earth" discovered only 22 light years away

An international team of scientists led by Professors Guillem Anglada-Escudé and Paul Butler from the Carnegie Institution for Science in the U.S. has discovered a potentially habitable Super-Earth that's "just" 22 light years away. The new Super-Earth has a mass that is 4.5 times larger than that of our planet and it revolves around its parent star in 28 days - a star that is significantly smaller than ours. This remarkable new discovery suggests that habitable planets could exist in a wider variety of environments than previously believed. Of the 750-odd  exoplanets  (extrasolar planets) discovered so far only very few can be considered " Super-Earths ." This newly discovered example called GJ667Cc is rocky like Earth and is rich in heavy chemical elements such as iron, carbon and silicon. Positioned at a distance from Earth of 22 light years, corresponding to a bit over 129 trillion miles (209 trillion km), the planet can be considered to be on Earth...