NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Using gene therapy, scientists have prevented mice from becoming obese when they eat too much.
It may sound like a dieter's dream, but don't expect gene therapy to be available for treating obesity anytime soon. The research is "very, very limited and preliminary," Dr. Sergei Zolotukhin of the University of Florida in Gainesville told Reuters Health.
Zolotukhin emphasized that gene therapy prevented obesity in one particular strain of rodents who were fed a particular diet. He cautioned that the results do not prove whether the same treatment would reverse existing obesity.
In the experiments, the researchers worked with a hormone called adiponectin, which is secreted by fat tissue. Previous research has suggested that adiponectin affects how well the body responds to the sugar-processing hormone insulin.
Obese and diabetic mice have below-average levels of adiponectin, and some research suggests that boosting levels of the hormone may improve insulin sensitivity and decrease obesity.
Zolotukhin and his colleagues set out to see if boosting adiponectin levels by inserting a gene for the hormone in the liver would prevent rats from becoming obese. The researchers used a harmless virus to deliver the gene for adiponectin into rats.
Rats given the gene therapy gained less weight than other rats, Zolotukhin's team reports in the advance online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In experiments involving rats that normally become obese when fed a high-fat diet, rats that were given a single gene therapy injection weighed 8 percent less 41 weeks later than animals that did not receive the therapy.
Rats given gene therapy were also more sensitive to the effects of insulin.
Although the results of the study are encouraging, Zolotukhin said that the findings need to be confirmed by other researchers.
Adiponectin is being studied as a treatment for obesity, but there are several obstacles, according to Zolotukhin, including the difficulty in isolating the hormone and its high cost. Gene therapy could be an alternative, the Florida researcher said, although he cautioned again that more study is needed to prove its effectiveness and safety.
From:Reuters health
