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Biotech Science

Molecule Cuts Off Fat's Food Supply 74

Posted by timothy from the but-not-fatties' dept.
hords writes "New Scientist reports a magic bullet that destroys the blood vessels that feed fat tissue enables mice to lose a third of their body weight. They first screened millions of peptides and identified one that binds to a membrane protein found only in the blood vessels supplying white fat. Then they hooked this up to another peptide that triggers cell suicide or apoptosis. Mice that had grown obese on a high-calorie diet were given daily injections of the combined peptide they lost 30 percent of their body weight in four weeks, whereas control mice given the two peptides separately grew even fatter."
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Molecule Cuts Off Fat's Food Supply More

Molecule Cuts Off Fat's Food Supply

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  • Hmm... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    These drugs work great for curing cancer in mice but don't work as well in humans. Given that, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't work well in humans for this either....

  • Tsk tsk (Score:3, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @08:13PM (#9112734) Homepage Journal
    Only 1 comment so far? Oh right, like this story isn't of concern to most of us here.

  • And... (Score:5, Funny)

    by eingram ( 633624 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @08:39PM (#9112892)
    ...in five years after the entire world is hooked on it, we'll see, "Have you been taking MOLECULE DIET PILLS and started bleeding UNCONTROLABLY? If so, YOU could get up to $1,000,000 in damages! Call 1-800-NO-BLEED!" commercials.

  • Doesn't obesity come with other symptoms though? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dylbert ( 139751 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @08:39PM (#9112896) Homepage
    Sure this might reduce fat cells and overall body weight, but does it do anything to control cholesterol levels, blood pressure, etc?

    Giving this to patients by itself wouldn't do much to discourage healthy eating. You'd have to combine it with treatment for cholesterol (and other obesity symptoms). Of course, then people could get a dependancy on it, meaning healthy eating and exercise become pointless to them.

    Just some food for thought (h0h0h0, its puntastic)
    • Er... encourage healthy eating, even.

      Heh. How to contradict oneself in one's own post.
    • You'd have to combine it with treatment for cholesterol (and other obesity symptoms).

      Do you really believe that? oh well, I guess you do, judging from the rest of the post. How sad. That's probably a clue about a medical system where often enough symptoms would get treated instead of the actual disease. Here's a hint: treat the illness and the symptoms will go away (at least, when possible - and in this case the illness is what they're aiming at).
      • And just what illness is overeating? Obesity is the symptom of too much food and too little exercise. Stop kidding yourself that it's anything else.

        Put down the diet Coke and the low-fat pork rinds. Try eating a balanced diet of reasonably-healthy foods (you know what they are) and get some exercise. You like competitive games? Play a sport. You like masterbating? Wear weighted wristbands and alternate hands. Try to incorporate a little extra effort into your basic daily life.

        Just stop telling me that o

        • Trust me being skinny is incredibly over rated. Where I work I am required to maintain a certain level of physical fitness and it isn't even all that high of a standard. Nonetheless I was a much happier individual when I was 40 to 60 pounds over weight according to the doctors. I do not see the theoretical extra years I may live, as a result of being uncomfortable for extended periods every week, as worth it. I would much rather live a happy and comfortable 40 to 60 years as a fatass than 100 years while re

          • Re:Doesn't obesity come with other symptoms though (Score:1, Interesting)

            by Anonymous Coward
            But I can not fully express my low opinion of exercising for the sake of being in shape.

            Amen to that. Most if not all the extra time you get to live (mind you, if any) is spent exercising. Heck, you might even live less when you subtract the exercising time, who knows *grin*

            Fun stuff, by all means. But the 'just for the image' stuff is an ego trip.[*]

            [*] geeks trying to get laid can qualify for an exemption
            • Most if not all the extra time you get to live (mind you, if any) is spent exercising. Heck, you might even live less when you subtract the exercising time, who knows *grin*

              My health club recently installed individual 15" LCD screens on a whole bunch of treadmills and elliptical trainers... All have full cable access. Now, instead of sitting on the couch at home, I can watch Simpsons or Iron Chef and excersize while doing it. And if Simpsons isn't on, those screens are attached to a DVD/CD player, so I

        • Did you read my post actually? I never said obesity is an hereditary illness. It is an ill state of the body, but that's not all there is - there's an ill state of mind coupled with it. By thinning out one gets a chance to break the circle and do something about it. It's quite hard (though not impossible) to make a fat person - and I mean a really fat, round one - to change his/her ways. Your advice works for losing some 40lb (the belly type), but try telling that to someone who is 150lb+ overweight. Yeah,
          • I read your post, and what I said stands: Obesity is the symptom of behavior, nothing more, unless someone shows proof otherwise. Coughing is a symptom of a cold. When you're coughing your body is in an "ill state", but the symptom is not the illness.

            Whatever labels we put on this, I completely agree that the easy way out is the wrong thing to do--I never encouraged the drugs. It may be a good start for some, but most won't change their ways.

            • Well, here we have some difficulty, and we start an offtopic rant. Sometimes, what we take as a symptom is, in fact, the illness (AFAWK). These are primary diseases. There are diseases which are a specific pathologic state associated with a particular etiology, and there are diseases which are sets associated pathologies, with no certain associated etiology.

              Take asthma, for instance. There is a distinct set of pathologies associated with asthma, but there is no single etiology, nor is there a set of etiologies which acount fully for the disease state (i.e., two people exposed to the same conditions may or may not develop asthma, even apart from genetics). Type I diabetes is the same way. There is a set of symptoms (airway hyperresponsiveness for asthma, or low insulin for diabetes) with an unknown cause. As that we do not know the cause, we must treat only the symptoms. Oddly, with the primary diseases, controlling the symptoms makes the disease undectable.

              If you treat all of the symptoms of a cold, the cold is still detectable as adenovirus in in lungs (Use Koch's postulates). If someone has cancer and it is forced into remission, there are still ways to detect the presence of an old cancer (exceptionally difficult sometimes, but possible).

              Not so with things like asthma, diabetes and primary diseases. Unless the symptom reasserts itself, the syndrome/disease/etc is undectable. Keep in mind that total ablation of the symptoms is rarely possible. It is only a theorectical concept except in mild cases.

              Back on topic, there are many known causes for obesity the most common of which are eating too much or sitting on your ass too much. Most commonly obesity is a result of a combination of the two. Therefore, it could be aruged that obesity is not a primary disease, because we know the cause. The opposing arguement is that because we do not understand the motivations which cause the self destructive behavior (which is regarded as a symptom), the disease is primary. That is, since we do not understand the cause of the "eating too much" symptom, we must call it a primary disease. I disagree, personally, because I do not see self-destructive behavior as a pathological state in Man. It may not be beneficial, but I don't think it's abnormal.

              Obesity can however be described as a cyclical disease, in that the disease state causes worsening of the state after a certain point. It is these people that truly need help. They essentially dug a hole that is too deep for them to climb out of on their own. These are the people who need intervention.

              • Obesity can however be described as a cyclical disease, in that the disease state causes worsening of the state after a certain point. It is these people that truly need help. They essentially dug a hole that is too deep for them to climb out of on their own. These are the people who need intervention.

                So true! Thank you for saying that... I think its something that those of us who aren't obese have a hard time understanding.

                I spent a couple of years studying a class of proteins that might make good anti-
                • I agree with everything you said (or at least I don't disagree with it), except for the yo-yo dieting effect. Accepting your previous arguments, I would agree that it is a partial explanation. I think a much larger part, however, is that "dieting" doesn't work. Here's what many people do when dieting:

                  - Notice undesirable weight
                  - Change diet to counteract weight gain
                  - Over time, lose some goal-amount of weight
                  - Resume previous diet, now that weight is down
                  - Regain all of lost weight, due to going back to th
                  • While this is basically true in many cases, it is not the whole story. Think about someone who is 20 pounds overweight, and has been for years.

                    The previous diet was maintaining weight. The person changes the diet ("goes on a diet"), and loses weight. The person goes back to the original diet... this diet should now maintain the new weight. (A bit of a simplification, because the person's metabolism might have changed due to lost muscle or what not).

                    So why do people tend to gain weight when they come off a
                • Frankly, I'm one of the lardbutts. And I felt the need to contribute here rather than spend mod-points.

                  As I read the obesity research literature, I realized that its far from simple to lose weight. Its obvious what we need to do: burn more calories than we take in. However, it is surprisingly hard to do this, and not because obese people are lazy or unmotivated. Our bodies are essentially optimized to maintain body weight, even when that weight is more than it should be for optimal health. This may make

        • ok, so I'm illiterate - can't tell different /. id's. sorry about putting words in your mouth. The GGP poster said that part about treating symptoms of obesity, which is funny and sad. Overeating is not an illness, it's a symptom. Obesity is a symptom, too much food and too little exercise are symptoms ... it all is about how far up the cause and effect chain you feel comfortable going - and what you want to call illness.
  • P e n i s ssss Enl@rger and Bûtt Redûcer Pilllllsssssss4534653475349238

  • Yurgh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by judd ( 3212 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @08:46PM (#9112928) Homepage
    I see all sorts of potential problems here. But here are two.

    1. We don't know what else fat cells do in your body. They may have other roles than fat storage.

    2. The health risk associated with obesity is not necessarily causative, just correlated. It has a lot to do with being sedentary. A fat person who takes these pills and becomes thin probably doesn't alter their health status much unless they take the opportunity to be less sedentary as well.

    I bet the potential for abuse for cosmetic purposes, a la anabolic steroids, will be huge.

    • Re:Yurgh (Score:5, Informative)

      by Too Much Noise ( 755847 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @11:07PM (#9113857) Journal
      If you look for a more accurate story (New Scientist? did /. fall so low already?), you'll see they're well aware of potential problems. From this yahoo story [yahoo.com]:


      When fat mice were injected with the new "fat-zapper" every day for a month, they all slimmed down to normal weight with no visible side-effects, the researchers reported in the June issue of Nature Medicine.

      But they stressed the experiment is still in the very early stages and it affects a function found in virtually all cells -- meaning it has a high potential for serious side-effects.

      "I am trying to un-hype this," said Dr. Wadih Arap of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who led the research.

    • Re:Yurgh (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Dros68 ( 700042 )
      "1. We don't know what else fat cells do in your body. They may have other roles than fat storage." For instance, fat contains stem cells that can heal fractures too large to heal by themselves. It seems likely that any reduction in blood flow would kill off the stem cells as quickly as the fat cells themselves. It would be unfortunate to be finally skinny, then break something because you lack your normal "fat cushion", then you are unable to heal yourself because you lack your fat derived stem cells!
    • Isn't the brain mostly fat? I thought that the brain used fat for cushion and support of neurons....

      If so, then, hey, I'd be glad to be part of your weight-loss experiment. Not!
    • "A fat person who takes these pills and becomes thin probably doesn't alter their health status much unless they take the opportunity to be less sedentary as well."
      More often than not, a fat person who takes this pills probably wouldn't care that their health status wouldn't be altered much. I'd wager that most people who try crazy diets don't do it because they want to be healthier. They do it because they want to be prettier. (Now.)

  • Unforseen side effects (Score:5, Interesting)

    by spineboy ( 22918 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @08:58PM (#9113022) Journal
    A 30% loss of total body fat in a month will probably result in some rather harsh/detrimental side effects. Can you imagine what will happen to the HUGE increase in cellular breakdown products from all the fat, triglycerides,proteins and nucleaic acids that are liberated? Gout, kidney damage, brain infarcts are just a few. The human body is probably not equipped to deal with massive cell apoptosis (cell death) on a level like this.

    On the other hand, morbid obesity is probably the number one preventable health concern in America. I am doubtfull that this will ever be a useful drug (i.e. too many side effects, like DEATH), but if somehow it makes it's way onto the list of FDA approved drugs, this will have a MAJOR affect on the American lifestyle (even less exercising?). Whatever pharm company invents this will be filthy, filthy, filthy rich.

    N.B. It usually takes about 10 years and close to a bilion dollars to go from a chemical/protein to an approved drug in America. Let's check back in a few years.

    • Re:Unforseen side effects (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Kris_J ( 10111 ) * on Monday May 10, 2004 @09:15PM (#9113153) Homepage Journal
      My instincts point to liver failure. No way it could process all those disolving fat cells.
    • The number of cells broken down would depend entirely on the dosage. If the FDA (Note: I'm not an American) were indeed to approve it, doctors would need to limit a person's intake so as to ensure the liver and associated organs can handle the increased load. Having the treatment span out over the course of 3-6 months might not be as much a problem than taking one hit in a month.

      What I'd be more inclined to look at is the political stance on a drug such as this - if (i.e. when) obesity turns into a major p

    • Re:Unforseen side effects (Score:4, Insightful)

      by KingOfBLASH ( 620432 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @10:22PM (#9113585) Journal

      You are assuming that humans would be administered a dose that would cause 30% of your fat cells to die. Each molecule can only kill off one fat cell, correct? So it should be possible to figure out how many molecules are needed to kill 1% of your fat cells in a month. That might be hard on your kidneys, but if it were medically necessary (i.e. you were so fat you can't walk, and thus can't excercise -- basically the same people who qualify to have their stomach stapled) to save a life, it might be worthwhile. And, dialysis is around. Couldn't they just hook you up to a dialysis machine while your fat cells die? Perhaps it will become a new form of liposuction that will leave no scars.

      I do think this may be one of the first non-mind altering drug to become a controlled substance if it gets approved because of the danger involved. Although I don't doubt there may be a way for it to be helpful, I also don't doubt stupid people will pop a bottle of pills in the hope it will just make them skinnier faster, or buy it off the black market without understanding hte risks. Then again, who am I to judge? Darwinism works because the stupid and the weak die off before they can procreate.

      • Each molecule can only kill off one fat cell, correct?

        Um, no. The peptides may not be consumed in performing their signaling/binding function. Nevertheless it might take millions of them to kill a single cell, the article isn't specific. There would be a constant of proportionality or other relation parameterised by species, bodily location of the tissue, etc.

        Couldn't they just hook you up to a dialysis machine while your fat cells die?

        Some of the blood vessels to the fat tissue die, as a result the f

        • Controlled substances are labeled as such because there is a large danger of abuse. I used to work at a pharmacy, and generally these drugs were narcotics (i.e. morphine), and things that could be sold illegally (apparently there is quite the black market out there for valium), and things which are very easy to get addicted to (i.e. OxyContins). Most of these drugs fit into the category of things people pop for fun. However, I can see people popping this drug in order to lose weight. It's a well known f
          • Antibiotics are controlled, just not very. Anything that requires a prescription, including my flouride toothpaste from the dentist, is technically controlled, isn't it? I mean, I know there are schedule I,II,III,IV,etc, but if you can't buy it over the counter, it's controlled. At least, that's my understanding. Am I off base here? That being said, there are huge differences between my flouride toothpaste and something like, say, sublingual morphine.
            • Well there are different levels of control so you are right. In pharmaceutical terms, a controlled substance is something that you need to fill out lots of paperwork to use and subscribe, and requires a doctor's prescription and not a glorified nurse (as opposed to antibiotics). (LPNs which are one level of nurse above RN can prescribe antibiotics and other things for things like ear aches). Also, controlled substances use prescription papers which cannot be easily faked. (About once a month we'd get so
      • Just to nitpick ...

        > Darwinism works because the stupid and the weak die
        >off before they can procreate.

        Careful here. Darwinism works because the less fit have fewer successful offspring. You don't have to die - you just need to have 3 kids when the others are having 4.

        Otherwise you have to try and explain why having [tails, hairy foreheads, bald armpits, etc] killed so many early humans! :-)

        You knew this, right? Ok, I'll go back to work...
        • You knew this, right? Ok, I'll go back to work... Yup, that's why we're so badly designed. The "stupid die off" was supposed to be tongue in cheek, :D. Don't work too hard, slashdot needs people like you. ;) 99% of the time when I am corrected I needed to be corrected. :D
    • I wonder if it will be any safer than 2, 4-Dinitrophenol.
    • N.B. It usually takes about 10 years and close to a bilion dollars to go from a chemical/protein to an approved drug in America. Let's check back in a few years.

      If some place easy to travel to "approves" it for human use, we will go there. I could just the ads now for the week trip to Mexican diet resort. Could you see the stampede when a famous person who eveyone knows is fat gets starts doing this? All it takes is a handfull of "success" stories. Then some reason all the idiots decide if it worked for t

    • If I lost 30% of my total body fat in a month, none of my clothes would fit !

  • I wouldn't hold my breath (Score:5, Informative)

    by JGski ( 537049 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @08:59PM (#9113025) Journal
    The original, original article's (scientific paper) author reminded a Reuter's interviewer [yahoo.com] that there as a good chance that this won't pan out for humans. There have been plenty of previous "fat factors" that only worked on rodents and didn't transfer to primates.

    The genomes of rats, mice and humans have a lot of key differences [nih.gov] in the basic metabolic pathways. That recent study explains a lot about why rat and mouse studies can be so wrong about human responses to drugs and things.

    • I'm not going to say this is a sure thing. However, it helps that they are merely using the presence of the protein in blood vessels supplying fat cells as a marker for attaching the cell death factor. They aren't trying to tweak a metabolic pathway, which would require the interplay of all the components to be preserved between mouse and human. Instead, they are just killing blood vessels that contain a particular protein. It seems like this is a little simpler and requires fewer caveats than a metaboli
    • Yes, it may not work on humans.

      Still, having a way to help our little furry friends lose weight can only be a good thing :)

    • True, the exact same chemical may not work in humans as it does in mice. However, the research helps define the processes that result in weight loss in mammals...

      We can now analyze the "MouseShrinker" chemical and examine its structure, look at mouse cells and see how it binds to block nutrients, look at similar fat cells in humans, and extrapolate what the "HumanShrinker" chemical should be. It gives scientists something to go on, to investigate. If it doesn't pan out now, oh well, but it may point to
      • It is a good thing. And you're right, there may be a homology in humans. I used to work in biotech, specifically a genomics company, so I'm pretty familiar with how this works.

        I also know how little we really understand on genomic-proteomic-metabolic pathways. In most cases the math needed to grok this isn't a common skill in the biological community. An organism's genomic-proteomic-metabolic pathways have similar complexity to the system of operating system, plus firmware/microcode, plus transistor-le

  • Hey, fathead! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Goon Number 1 ( 168487 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @09:16PM (#9113165) Homepage Journal
    What's my brain made out of? Oh yeah, Fat [fi.edu]. Let's mess with that, shall we?
    • Sorry, dude, but it's completely unrelated.

      While the brain does use some fats to isolate neurons, it does not get it from fat cells. In fact, there are no fat cells in the brain.

      Fat cells are cells are specialized cells that store fat. That's their job. The fat takes up to 85% of the cell volume.

      If 30% of the fat cells are destroyed, that only means that the body's fat storage was reduced by 30%. This probably would be excess fat that the body would never use.

      Reducing total fat is not harmful to the bra

    • Different fat (Score:5, Informative)

      by MachDelta ( 704883 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @12:18AM (#9114164)
      The article said the drug only targets white fat. Virtually all of the "important fat" in your body (eg: membranes around the heart, blood vessels, brain, myelin, etc) is "brown fat". White fat (actually yellow), on the other hand, is the stuff that you find in love handles, beer bellies, fat-asses, and our other beloved yet misshapen body parts. The big difference between to two in your bodies eye is that white fat is for storage, whereas brown fat is for other things like protection and temperature regulation. Brown fat tissue doesn't really get "fat" (you'd be dead if it did) because thats not it's purpose.

      So as long as this drug really only does affect white fat, it should (theoretically) work. It certainly wouldn't be a miricle drug though. For one thing, it seems like it would attack fat indiscriminately. Your body stores fat in preferred locations, but theres no way to tell the drug to "just" go after your gut. It would eat fat away from your entire body - not just your problem areas. Imagine how many women would bitch after their boobs shrunk, their arm muscles were exposed, but their ass was still too big?

      The other major problem with it is that it wouldn't be permanent. Fat cells don't have a specified size - they'll grow or shrink depending on the bodies need. So even if you kill off half your fat cells one week, theres no guarantee that next week your remaining fat cells will just start growing 2 times bigger (this is why lyposuction 'doesn't always work'). This means the drug probably wouldn't work for your "typical fat American kid", because their diets won't change. Sure, they could slice off a few pounds with a pill, but if they keep eating unhealthy their bodies will just pile more into their existing cells. If they go on the drugs repeatedly (or permanently), they could wind up with serious health problems - or worse.
      The best audience for this type of thing would be people who eat healthy, but for whatever reason can't loose fat, or want to loose more of it. People like bodybuilders (for that even more ripped look), or possibly women who haven't lost pregnancy fat after birth, or something. For the majority of us who snack on chocolate cake and pop between our 6 course meals, it probably wouldn't work.
      Sorry to ruin everyones day :)
      • The other major problem with it is that it wouldn't be permanent. Fat cells don't have a specified size - they'll grow or shrink depending on the bodies need. So even if you kill off half your fat cells one week, theres no guarantee that next week your remaining fat cells will just start growing 2 times bigger (this is why lyposuction 'doesn't always work').

        Erm, if I'n not totally mistaken, the amount of fat cells your body has is a fixed number.
        Sure the remaining cells can get bigger, but if the overall n

        • IANAD, but I don't think that there is a fixed number. I think that fat cells typically do not die once they are created, so that the number of fat cells is increasing. True they can store a lot of fat (energy), but they probably stay below some reasonable limit and (I guess) would instead divide.

          I'm sure that if this drug appears to be really successful, they will try many ways to get it to target specific areas. You will probably have to get an injection or something if you wanted to shrink your lov
          • It is a fixed number. Fat cells stop multiplying (or dividing, using CodeMonkey4Hire's terminology) by the time you're an adult, and there is a fixed number for the rest of your life. As for this drug's success, I have some serious doubts that a cancer-causing drug will do well on the market.
        • Yes, there is a fixed number; and the rest of his point was that the fat cells that survived the treatment would grow very large if the person didn't start eating better. They might have a size limit, but you'd surely get a very chunky cellulite effect.
    • Attempt at humor: Failed.

  • Oh boy (Score:2, Funny)

    by Gecedion ( 729009 )
    So how long until I'm spammed about this latest breakthrough in weight-loss technology?

  • A point for geeks who like big busts... (Score:3)

    by sacremon ( 244448 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @09:03AM (#9116123)
    ...much of the bulk of women's breasts is white fat.

  • I'm honestly a bit concerned as to how they plan to apply this to human subjects. Prohibitin isn't restricted to human white fat. It has other applications in the human body; it's a potential tumor suppressor protein [stormingmedia.us], for one. If they cut this thing out, I'd bet my left arm that we'd see instances of breast cancer shoot up.
  • With phrases like "triggers cell suicide" used, you have to wonder what could possibly go wrong here?!?!? Fen-Phen, anybody?

    Not that it's not neat, but this would be a highly useful application for destroying the blood supply to cancer cells. Cancer typcially coaxes the body to grow a whole bunch of new blood vessles to feed itself, so if those could be targeted instead, then we'd have something actually useful instead of just an excuse to pound down those big gulps and triple cheeseburgers.
    • They are actually trying to do this. (I hope I don't get nailed with an 'Off-topic', but I can't help myself.)

      One of the controversal subjects right now in Oncology is that perhaps the chemotherapy and radiation isn't killing the main-cancer cells, but rather the endothelial cells that form the vascular tissues of the tumor (which are found in bone marrow). I've read at least three studies that argue for and against this, and frankly, I'm leaning towards the 'For' side.

      As for a drug that would behave

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