The latest study suggests a new way to help obese or overweight individuals to lose and maintain weight through traditional diets.
Scientists have found a key mechanism that could help “not only to reduce the desire to eat fatty foods but also simultaneously boost energy burning in muscle.”
A team of researchers, led by Professor Gregory Steinberg from McMaster University, along with postdoctoral research fellow Dongdong Wang, has made a significant discovery regarding weight loss and calorie burning during dieting.
Their study focused on a hormone called GDF15, which had previously been found to reduce appetite when combined with the type 2 diabetes drug metformin. The researchers’ latest findings, published today in Nature, indicate that GDF15 also holds promise for promoting weight loss.
This breakthrough research not only opens up new possibilities for helping individuals maintain weight loss after dieting but also suggests potential combination therapies involving GDF15 and currently available appetite-suppressing drugs to further enhance weight loss.
Obesity, a global concern affecting one billion people, is closely associated with various metabolic disorders, including type 2 diabetes. Thus, effective weight loss methods have long been the focus of research.
Steinberg, a professor in McMaster University’s Department of Medicine and co-director of the Centre for Metabolism, Obesity, and Diabetes Research, said: “We have discovered that in mice, GDF15 blocks the slowing of metabolism that occurs during dieting by ramping up calcium futile cycling in muscle.”
The results of the study show “the potential of the hormone GDF15 to not only reduce the desire to eat fatty foods but also simultaneously boost energy burning in muscle.”
While calorie restriction initially leads to weight loss, the body’s metabolism eventually slows down, diminishing the effectiveness of this process. However, the research showed that mice treated with GDF15 continued to lose weight while consuming the same number of calories as the control group. This increase in energy expenditure primarily occurred in their muscles, rather than in fat tissue.
Steinberg emphasized the need for further research to validate these findings in humans. Understanding how GDF15 levels affect energy expenditure in human muscle could help elucidate why individuals experience varying levels of success when attempting to lose weight through dieting.
Moreover, additional research on GDF15 could potentially offer new avenues of support for individuals who struggle with weight loss through traditional diets. It may also enhance the benefits of recently approved appetite-suppressing drugs that target the GLP1 receptor.
This groundbreaking analysis of GDF15’s impact on weight loss was made possible through collaboration with Novo Nordisk and researchers from Ottawa, Waterloo, Sherbrooke, Beijing, and Guelph.
Funding for this work was provided, in part, by Diabetes Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and Novo Nordisk.
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