'Starving' Fat May Be Newest Obesity Treatment
Monday, February 1, 2010 - 12:49
in Health & Medicine
Proapoptotic Peptides that target blood vessels in White adipose (fat) tissue and cause them to go undergo programmed cell death could become a model for future weight-loss therapies, says a study published online in Diabetes. The study found that obese animal models treated with proapoptotic peptides experienced decreased food intake and significant fat loss. Fat tissue is vascularized, much like a tumor, and growth of fat tissue is highly dependent on the tissue's ability to build new blood vessels—a phenomenon called angiogenesis. Inhibiting adipose angiogenesis—essentially "starving" fat tissue—can reverse the effects of a high-fat diet in mice and rats. read more