Our body did not evolve for the vicissitudes of modern life. During a good part of human existence, staying alive required for example that our body reacts to food shortages to prevent our energy consumption from becoming excessive and drained our reserves. In the world the contemporary world, this strategy has become an inconvenience for many who want to lose weight.
A new way. Now this can change thanks to a new discovery. A team of researchers has discovered a mechanism used by the liver in the consumption of sugars and fats. Although the finding is still limited to animal models, the team believes that it shows potential to help improve the effectiveness of weight reduction treatments and even against diabetes.
Facing the deficit. Layout seems simple: we just have to spend more calories than we consume. However, this is often complicated, since our body is an expert manager of its energy economy, knows how to react to scarcity.
When we see ourselves in a prolonged situation in which we reduce the energy contribution of our body, that is, we ingest less calories, our body reacts reducing our energy consumption. To do this, it has a key tool: slow down metabolism.
This implies for example, that after a time of diet, we can see how the weight we lower is reduced. Something that even affects people who resort to drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy or Zepbound.
Plvap. The team responsible for the discovery, they explain, was studying a gene called PLVAP in mice hígados. This is also a gene present in human cells. It was known that people with mutations that eliminated this gene presented problems by metabolizing lipids (fats), which focused group interest.
The study of this gene allowed to discover that its function has to do with the metabolic change that occurs when our body goes from consuming sugar to consume fats during fasting. If this gene is not activated, the body continues to burn sugar as if nothing happened.
Deceive the body. Controlling this newly discovered mechanism would open the way to improve the treatments present for weight loss. The strategy to achieve this would be to use this gene to “deceive” the liver in its regulation of our metabolism.
The details of the study were published in an article in the magazine Cell.
Not just a matter of weight. Controlling our weight is something that arouses enormous interest, as the successes of drugs such as those belonging to the Ozempic family have demonstrated. However, those responsible for the study point out that they could also help us treat metabolic diseases. An example is diabetes due to the role of PLVAP protein in the way our body processes sugar.
A long road ahead. Transforming the finding into a treatment that can reach people will take years. For now, work has only been carried out in mice, which implies that it must still be demonstrated that the same mechanisms operate in the metabolism of human beings, something predictable but for now without contrast.
Designing a drug and getting all common controls, including clinical trials is also something that requires time and, above all effort. The success of the new generation of drugs for weight loss is at least an indication that this type of treatments is on the laboratory agenda, so the effort is.
In WorldOfSoftware | We have been trying to find out why we get fat. Science is increasingly clear
Image | WorldOfSoftware with Gemini / Andres Ayrton
