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February 11, 2004
Burn fat chemically?
Leptin is a natural hormone that is related to your body fat. Research shows a strong positive correlation between leptin levels and: a) how much energy you produce from carb intake; and b) how much fat you've got in your body.
Interestingly, if you increase leptin levels the body starts actually burning fat. Cool.
The bad news? The body in question belongs to a rat. In humans, it appears that some mechanism stops the leptin from having this effect -- in fact, fat people have more leptin than thin, and exercise reduces leptin levels.
So... now they're trying to figure out how to get human bodies to react in a rat-like fashion to leptin...
"We would like to break down the normal defense system against leptin produced in the fat cell. If we could disable or bypass this system and transform fat (storing) cells into fat-burning cells, then we may be a step closer to solving the obesity epidemic".
- Dr. Roger Unger, the director of the Touchstone Center for Diabetes Research at UT Southwestern
Posted by Michael at February 11, 2004 04:34 PM
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