Team Shrinks Fat Cells in Mice

[Guest guest]

A technique similar to one developed to shrink cancerous tumors appears

promising for destroying fat cells, new research suggests.

For more than two decades, medical researchers have been developing drugs

that target blood vessels supplying blood to tumors as a way to fight

various forms of cancer.

A team of scientists at the University of Texas MD Cancer Center

in Houston and colleagues decided to try the same strategy as a possible

treatment for obesity, which has become epidemic in the United States.

The researchers first identified a substance, dubbed prohibitin, that homed

in on blood vessels supplying fat tissue. They then attached the substance

to another agent that causes cells to commit suicide.

When the researchers gave the compound to mice that had become obese from

eating a high-fat diet, the animals' body weight returned to normal within

weeks, the researchers reported in the June issue of the journal Nature

Medicine. The drug did not appear to have any significant adverse side

effects.

" If even a fraction of what we found in mice relates to human biology, then

we are cautiously optimistic that there may be a new way to think about

reversing obesity, " said Renata Pasqualini, who helped conduct the research.

-- Rob Stein