A hormone that combats weight gain has been discovered by Scientists at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. The hormone is called MOTS-c.
It doesn’t only fight the weight gain, but does this even though the subject’s weight gain is caused by a high-fat Western diet. It also normalizes the metabolism, effects usually associated with exercise.
The team tested the effects of MOTS-c by injecting it into mice which they fed a high-fat diet.
Hormones regulate body processes and make sure that respective parts of the body are doing their job.
Many conditions such as thyroid problems, diabetes and PMS etc, are caused by the irregularity of hormones that aren’t releasing enough, or too much. Essentially, the replication of hormones cures this imbalance.
The diet caused the mice to develop obesity and made them insulin resistant. The researchers discovered that injecting the rodents with the hormone not only suppressed both effects in mice, it also reversed age-dependent insulin-resistance, a condition that precedes diabetes.
Pinchas Cohen, Dean of the USC Davis school and senior author of a study on the research which was featured in Cell Metabolism on March 3 said, “This represents a major advance in the identification of new treatments for age-related diseases such as diabetes.”
Changhan Lee, assistant professor at USC Davis and lead author of the study told the press, “This discovery sheds new light on mitochondria and positions them as active regulators of metabolism”.
One can’t help but anticipate the waves that this hormone would make in the diet pill industry.
In a quick-fix society, a hormone of this nature could sell for thousands of rand on supermarket shelves if incorporated into mainstream products.
The study of MOTS-c is still in a preliminary phase, and has only been tested on mice.
However, scientists said that the genetic make-up of these rodents is similar to humans, so the release of medications following this discovery may not be far off at all.
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