Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Inhibiting The Cellular Process Autophagy Makes Mice Leaner

"Recent data have indicated that the more brown fat cells a person has the lower their body mass. This contrasts with what is known for white fat cells, the more white fat cells a person has the greater their body mass. It has been suggested that manipulating the development of fat cells so that they become brown fat cells rather than white fat cells might be an approach to treat obesity.

However, before such an approach can be developed more needs to be learned about the mechanisms regulating the formation, expansion, and interconversion of these two cell types.

New research, performed by Mark Czaja and colleagues, at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, has now identified a cellular process that regulates the formation of the distinct fat cell types in mice. The research appears in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Specifically, in mice with fat cells unable to perform the cellular process known as autophagy, there were fewer white fat cells and more brown fat cells than normal. Further, these mice were leaner than normal."

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Happy Holidays! My name is Lisa Hope and I am the assistant editor of Disorder.org. I am contacting you today in hopes of developing a strategic partnership with your website; we have seen your site and think your content is great. Disorder.org is an online gateway for people to find information regarding disorder diagnosis, symptoms, and treatment -- and is continually adding content. More specifically, Disorder.org is starting a campaign to promote awareness about eating disorders of all types. If you're interested in a partnership, please contact me at lisa.disorder.org@gmail.com.

Michael Applebaum, MD, JD, FCLM said...

Hello, Lisa.

Happy Holidays to you, too.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Fact is, I am leery of linking to sites that offer treatment advice since I do not have the time to monitor them. I do not want to give my readers the impression that I support what others say unless I am in a position to follow and/or edit content.

I will leave your post up so people are aware of your site with the caveat to all my readers that I do not support your site or its contents.

Have a good year.