The treatment of obesity is based on reducing calorie intake with a balanced diet that provides the necessary nutrients and increasing energy expenditure by performing the most appropriate physical exercise for the patient, but sometimes it is also necessary to include psychological therapy or drugs to lose weight. the extra kilos Now, a drug that has been tested on mice has been able to prevent weight gain and liver problems associated with a high-fat, high-sugar Western diet.
The new drug has been developed by scientists at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio), United States. “When we give mice this drug for a short time, they start to lose weight. Everyone loses weight,” said Madesh Muniswamy, a professor of medicine at the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine.
These scientists discovered the drug while investigating how magnesium affects metabolism, or energy production and consumption in cells. This energy, called ATP, fuels the body’s processes. Magnesium has important health functions, including regulating blood sugar and blood pressure and building bones, but the researchers found that too much magnesium slowed energy production in the mitochondria, which are the cell power plants.
“When we give mice this drug for a short time, they start to lose weight. Everyone loses weight”
“It puts the brakes on, it just slows down,” explains co-lead author Travis R. Madaris, a doctoral student in the Muniswamy lab at UT Health San Antonio. Knocking out the MRS2 gene—which drives magnesium transport into mitochondria—resulted in more efficient metabolism of sugar and fat in powerhouses, resulting in lean, healthy mice. In addition, they found no signs of fatty liver disease – a condition related to obesity, type 2 diabetes and an inadequate diet – neither in this organ nor in the adipose tissue of the animals.
How does the drug that prevents obesity work?
The new drug is a small-molecule drug that researchers have called CPACC, and it does the same thing: limiting the amount of magnesium transferred to the body’s power plants. The result of the experiments they conducted was again: lean and healthy mice. UT Health San Antonio has filed a patent application on the drug.
The researchers used the mice as a model system for long-term dietary stress caused by the high-calorie Western diet, which includes fatty and sugary foods. Typical results of this stress are obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Their findings have been published in Cell Reports.
“Reducing mitochondrial magnesium mitigated the adverse effects of prolonged dietary stress,” said co-lead author Manigandan Venkatesan, a postdoctoral fellow in Muniswamy’s lab. “These findings are the result of several years of work,” says Muniswamy. “A drug that can reduce the risk of cardiometabolic diseases, such as heart attacks and strokes, and also reduce the incidence of liver cancer, which can follow fatty liver disease, will have a big impact. We will continue to develop it.”
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