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Fat injection could slim down obesity

By increasing the theoretical energy-burning activity of brown fat, researchers have been working out if such a process can be used as a therapeutic concept to help people lose excess weight. To date scientists have looked at such methods as shivering and administering brown fat-activating molecules.

In a new area of the research, as reported by The Scientist, scientists have been looking at transplanting brown fat. With this, research group based in China have found that animals likely to to become obese do not “appear gain as much weight after a single injection of brown fat from a donor animal.”

With the study, the brown fat was put into mice that lacked leptin. This satiety hormone, Kerry Grens notes in The Scientist piece: “predisposes the animals to obesity and metabolic problems. It was found that the experimental mice did not gain as much weight as their control counterparts; furthermore, the mice did not suffer other problems, such as fatty liver and insulin insensitivity.”

It should be noted that a research brief t=_blank]the investigation thus far has been on mice only. It is unknown whether the same physiological effect would take place if similar injections were administered to humans.

The findings have been published in the journal Endocrinology. The research is titled “Brown adipose tissue transplantation reverses obesity in Ob/Ob mice.”

In related news, Digital Journal has reported that a research group have found that people who are overweight have a lower chance of developing dementia when older compared to people who are thinner.

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Written By

Dr. Tim Sandle is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for science news. Tim specializes in science, technology, environmental, business, and health journalism. He is additionally a practising microbiologist; and an author. He is also interested in history, politics and current affairs.

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