Washington — It may be possible someday to gorge yourself with rich food and still lose weight if a technique performed on laboratory mice also works for humans.
Scientists at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston found that if an enzyme called acetyl-CoA carboxylase 2, or ACC2, is blocked in mice, the animals can eat much more food than other mice and still weigh 10 to 15 percent less.
"If it works in humans like it did in the mouse, I would like it for myself," said Salih Wakil, the chairman of biochemistry and molecular biology at Baylor. He is senior author of a study appearing today in the journal Science. "This could be a real boon for couch potatoes," Wakil added. "They could sit on the couch, eat and still lose weight."
Baylor researchers identified a gene that makes ACC2 and then bred mice that lacked both copies of the gene. Such animals are called "knockout mice" because a gene has been knocked out or muted.
Wakil said the knockout mice were permitted to eat as much food as they wanted, for as long as they wanted. A control group of mice with normal genes were fed the same way.
Even though they ate about 40 percent more than the control mice did, the knockout mice lost weight, Wakil said.
"The mice are very healthy and seem just as active as the control mice," Wakil said. "Productivity in terms of having little mice is very good."
The Baylor researchers are now testing compounds that could be used in a pill to block the secretion of ACC2. Such a pill will first be tested in mice and then in higher animals, such as monkeys, Wakil said. He said that if all goes well, the pill could be tested in humans within five years.
Laboratories all over the United States are searching for magic drugs that would help control an epidemic of obesity. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 61 percent of Americans are overweight and 26 percent are obese, or grossly overweight. Other re-searchers have identified genes that influence appetite and proteins that restrict fat storage.
Obesity has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes.
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