A new study conducted on mice have found the reduction of a protein, known as iRhom2, can do two things - reduce fat and increase energy consumption in fat depots in the body. The study's findings were originally published in the journal Molecular Metabolism.
Principal investigator of the study Colin Adrain told a news portal "it is important to understand the fundamental mechanisms underlying how metabolic dysregulation occurs." Through the course of their investigation, Adrain said they team learned "iRhom2 protein is strongly present in metabolic tissues and organs, which made us decide to study the role of iRhom2 in obesity in more detail."
Obesity has become a public health issue across the globe. The medical condition can increase the risk of serious health issues like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. That is why researchers are trying to find a new way to tackle the issue before it becomes a more serious problem. For the study, researchers used an animal model to compare those with iRhom2 deletion, They also fed them with either a normal diet or a high-fat diet.
Researcher and study author Marina Badenes told a news portal "the deletion of iRhom2 led to enhanced energy consumption in adipose tissue, which protected animals from fat accumulation and inflammation, fatty liver and insulin resistance when the animals were placed on a diet that predisposed them to obesity".
The team also discovered that "at the cellular level deletion of iRhom2 leads to an increase in thermogenesis (heat production) in brown adipose tissue. Thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue is an important physiological mechanism to consume excess body energy".
Further research is needed to better understand their findings. Another study, published in the journal Diabetologia, warns early exposure to obesity can significantly increase the risk of type 2 diabetes."Our data also indicated that baseline BMI among young women was significantly associated with risk of developing type 2 diabetes...The results highlight the importance of overweight or obesity in early adulthood as risk factors for adult diabetes, indicating that weight control starting before early adulthood is critical for reducing type 2 diabetes risk in later life," authors of the study from Indiana University told a news portal.
The team further stated, "the importance of preventing or delaying the onset of obesity and reducing cumulative exposure to obesity to substantially lower the risk of developing diabetes. We recommend that people self-monitor weight change over time and that health care providers look at weight change in addition to current weight as another risk factor for diabetes."
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