New research shows how topping up the levels
of a hormone found in the gut could help reduce the appetite and increase
activity in overweight and obese people.
The study now being pre-published online in the International Journal
of Obesity shows how the team from Imperial College London gave injections
of oxyntomodulin to fifteen overweight but healthy volunteers from
Hammersmith Hospital, and monitored how this affected their food intake,
and levels of activity.
Professor Steve Bloom, from Imperial College London, who led the
research, said:
" The discovery that this hormone has a double
effect, increasing energy expenditure as well as reducing food intake,
could be of huge importance. When most people diet, this produces a
reduction in activity, which is probably an adaptive trait to conserve
energy during times of famine. However this does make it especially
difficult for obese individuals trying to loose weight. In contrast
oxyntomodulin decreases calorific intake, but actually increases energy
expenditure, making it an ideal intervention for the obese."
The researchers used fifteen healthy overweight male and female volunteers,
aged between 23 and 49 years. The volunteers completed three separate
four-day study sessions, where they self administered either saline
or oxyntomodulin according to a double blind randomised trial.
After the first injection, the volunteers were given a meal, and their
calorific intake was monitored. They spent the next two days in their
normal environment, self administering oxyntomodulin three times a
day before meals. On the fourth day, the volunteers came back to the
hospital to have their energy expenditure measured.
They found that after the first meal, the volunteers ate on average
128 kcal or 17.4% less, while activity related energy expenditure
increased by an average of 143 kcal or 26.2%.
The researchers also found a reduction in body weight by an average
of 0.5%.
Professor Bloom added:
" This discovery could provide doctors
with a whole new way to treat the current obesity epidemic. We need
to get away from the focus on food and start to think about how to
increase exercise. The question is how to make people enjoy taking
exercise and how to encourage them to do it spontaneously.
_ Oxyntomodulin could work by letting
the brain know it has an adequate energy supply and that it can afford
to do productive things
rather than concentrate solely on food seeking or conserving energy.
It signals to the brain that it can increase exercise by letting it
know that the energy is available to do more things.
_ If used as a therapy for obesity,
oxyntomodulin provides a double whammy - reducing food intake and
increasing spontaneous activity."
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