Diet drug makers seeking new strategies

...The search for new drug pathways that alter the body’s metabolism, and the way calories are burned and stored as fat, gained momentum in 2009 when researchers from the University of Michigan, Vanderbilt University and Fudan University in Shanghai published a paper in the journal Cell exploring the relationship between inflammation in the fat tissue of mice and obesity and diabetes.

They focused on a protein that activates immune-system white blood cells that cause fat cells to swell.

In regular mice that were fed a high-calorie diet, the protein activated white blood cells, causing fat cells to swell. The mice gained weight and became insulin-resistant, a condition known as Type 2 diabetes.

Another group of mice were genetically engineered to lack the protein. Those animals were also overfed, but they didn’t gain weight. Instead, their bodies consumed more oxygen and produced greater amounts of another type of protein that generates body heat by burning fat tissue.

As an added benefit, the engineered mice didn’t develop diabetes.