Gut hormone shows promise as new treatment for obesity
“An attractive therapeutic option for obesity,” is how scientists describe administration of a gut hormone which has been found to reduce appetite in both lean and overweight volunteers.
The hormone — peptide YY3–36 (PYY) — occurs naturally
in the gut. But a recent trial of 12 lean and 12 overweight volunteers
found that obese people had PYY levels around a third lower than those
of their lean counterparts.
Researchers at Imperial College London and Hammersmith Hospital found
that by infusing PYY intravenously in the morning, they were able to
reduce the perceived appetite and calorific consumption of both sets
of volunteers by around a third for a period of 24 hours (New England Journal of Medicine 2003;349:941).
Dr Rachel Batterham, the study’s lead author commented: “PYY
is released from the gut in response to eating and it signals to the
brain that a meal has been eaten. This deficiency of PYY we observed
in obese subjects could be the reason why some people become obese and
others don’t. Further research is now needed to establish whether
we can change people’s diet to increase the release of this hormone.”
Professor Steve Bloom who heads the department of metabolic medicine
at Imperial College said that the discovery could suggest “a possible
new treatment for the millions suffering from obesity”.
The paper states that PYY did not appear to effect palatability or have
side effects such as nausea.
The authors add that obese subjects do not appear to be resistant to
the effects of PYY, whereas they do display resistance to leptin, another
appetite regulator, which acts on the same hypothalamic neural circuits
as PYY. |
