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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Two drugs already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration may have a role to play in helping people lose weight.
In a study carried out at Harvard Medical School, researchers found mice who were genetically engineered to resist leptin the hormone that tells us when weve had enough to eat were resensitized after treatment with drugs called PBA and TUDCA.
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The drugs work by helping to fold and transport proteins inside the endoplasmic reticulum, or ER, which is described as a protein factory inside the cell. When molecular workers within the factory cant keep up, the ER becomes stressed. When ERs are stressed, they dont react properly to leptin. The drugs act as chemical workers to take up the slack.
Both normal mice and mice without leptin lost weight in the study. Normal mice quit losing weight after the initial weight loss. Mice without leptin continued to shed the pounds while they were being treated with the drugs.
The finding is particularly exciting, note the authors, because while leptin was discovered more than a decade ago, but so far scientists have been unable to use it to help either animals or people shed the extra pounds.
"Our study is the first success in sensitizing obese mice on a high-fat diet to leptin," study author Umut Ozcan was quoted as saying. "If it works in humans, it could treat obesity."
SOURCE: Cell Metabolism, published online January 6, 2009
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