A specific human enzyme may help tackle obesity and diabetes, if a new scientific report is to be believed.

In a new study, scientists have reported that they substantially curbed weight gain, improved metabolism, and improved the efficacy of insulin in mice by engineering them to express a specific human enzyme in their fat tissue.


Although the obesity prevention came at the significant cost of widespread inflammation, the research offers new clues about the connections among obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, and inflammation.

"Turning on this molecule has a very dramatic impact on lipid metabolism," said Haiyan Xu, assistant professor of medicine (research) in the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and a researcher at Rhode Island Hospital's Hallett Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology.

In the study, the researchers changed the sequence of events for transgenically engineered mice by inducing inflammation via the enzyme IKKbeta in their fatty tissue before they were obese. The result for metabolism was much more positive than for control mice who were left unaltered but were fed the same diets...