Brown fat, medically known as a more fluid and easily burnable fat
A new drug may revolutionize weight-loss by causing not only dramatic results, but also the seamless conversion of complex fat into simple ones.
GC-1, as it is called, represents a new approach to weight-loss treatment as it is the first to convert fat the kind that stores excess calories and has a track record of being linked to obesity and metabolic disease into a easy calorie-burning brown fat.
“GC-1 dramatically increases the metabolic rate, essentially converting white fat, which stores excess calories and is associated with obesity and metabolic disease, into a fat like calorie-burning brown fat,” said the studies author Kevin Phillips, PhD, from Houston Methodist Research Institute.
Up until recently, scientists thought that only animals and young children have the energy-burning fat stored on their body.
“It is now clear that human adults do have brown fat, but appear to lose its calorie-burning activity over time” said Phillips.
According to Phillips, white fat becomes a “metabolic-villain,” when the body has too much present and can be very hard to burn off.
Medically referred to as white adipose tissue, this fat poses a major problem for adults when the body acquires too much of it. It has even been suggested by several academic journals that people who possess more brown fat have a reduced risk of developing obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other ailments related to being overweight.
This better understanding of the different types of fats in recent scientific research has lead researchers to continue to strive to develop a fat-converting medicine, which has seen rapid growth in the last five years. GC-1 is ultimately the child of this research.
According to Phillips, by activating the receptors for thyroid hormones, the body’s way of converting food into energy, it can activate thermogenesis, in which they body self-regulates and converts excess energy to heat.
As for the trials, Phillips tested hundreds of mice who were both obese and/or made obese for the purpose of the trial. Each mouse received GC-1 daily, and of those mice studied, over 50 per cent of their fat mass was lost after two weeks. These mice also showed antidiabetic effects, such as insulin sensitivity. Those mice with diet-induced obesity, experienced similar improvements according to the report.
“Our data demonstrate that GC-1 is a novel fat-browning agent that may have use in the treatment of obesity and metabolic disease,” said Phillips.
For those interested in learning more, the study results will be presented on Mar. 13 at the Endocrine Society’s 97th annual meeting in San Diego.
While GC-1 has not yet been tested for weight-loss in humans, it is currently being tested in clinical trials for lowering cholesterol, going by the name Sobertirome.
According to Phillips, the dose being tested in Sobertirome is much lower that the amount it would take to cause dramatic weight-loss as mentioned in the articles’ findings.
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