Posted on 01/05/2011 12:25:00 PM PST by decimon
Researchers have found what appears to be a critical tuning dial for controlling whole body energy, according to a new report in the January issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication. When energy levels within cells drop, it sets off a series of events designed to increase the amount of calorie-rich dietary fat that the body will absorb.
This energy reset mechanism is surely critical for survival under natural conditions of scarcity to ensure a steady supply of fuel, the researchers say. Today, many of us who enjoy a Western diet loaded with fat might do better if we could find a way to turn the activity of the so-called AMPK-SRC-2 pathway down.
"Thousands of years ago, this would have been crucial," said Bert O'Malley of Baylor College of Medicine. "Now it's trouble because we eat so much fatty food."
Earlier studies had shown the enzyme AMPK to be an ancient energy sensor. The enzyme causes cells to consume less energy in the form of ATP and to produce more. AMPK also drives appetite.
The new work shows that AMPK also allows for the optimal absorption of the most energy-rich fuel from the diet: fat. That effect of AMPK depends on its activation of SRC-2, a master control gene whose job is to switch other genes on.
When SRC-2 springs into action, it controls genes that lead to the secretion of bile from the gall bladder into the intestine. "You need bile to emulsify and absorb fat," O'Malley explained.
Mice lacking SRC-2 fail to absorb fat normally, they report. Those deficiencies can be corrected by restoring bile acids to the gut.
Together with earlier work, the findings present a "pretty picture" in which SRC-2 is involved in absorbing and storing fat. SRC-2 is also known to play a role in releasing stored glucose from the liver. "It's all about energy accretion, storage and delivery," O'Malley says.
This process takes place on a daily basis even when there is already plenty of fat stored in the body. "It's designed to get in more fat," he says. "Over evolutionary time, when you didn't know when the next meal would be, you really couldn't get enough fat. Now, our next meal is at the corner McDonald's."
The discovery reveals a key mechanism linking the cellular energy state with the whole-body energy state and may ultimately have important clinical implications, the researchers say.
"Obesity is all about fat absorption and storage," O'Malley said. "If you could turn that down, you could have a major effect on a disease that is slowly killing the population." He says his team is now conducting studies in search of SRC-2 inhibitors that might do exactly that.
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Want more research news from Cell Press? Go to: http://www.eurekalert.org/jrnls/cell/pages/index.php
Heavy fuel ping.
Or exercise. Mongolian herders eat obscene amounts of animal fat every day, but then they live in the cold and work a lot, so they usually stay pretty thin.
2 week quick start. Whole natural nuts (not salted, not roasted), meat, eggs and leafy green veggies/tomato and onion. Not much fun - but your body will not have enough available carbohydrate and your body will instead use fat for energy. After a few weeks, you can start eating stuff like berries and the occassional sweet potato. Couple that with some good exercise daily and you’ll be a lean mean Conservative machine!
sounds bloody miserable. If I couldn’t eat what I wanted I’d start smoking again.
Do they remember Fat Free Pringles, which should be on the shelf next to the adult diapers?
The Atkin’s diet and other low carb diets have long emphasized that once carbs are restricted, the body enters the ketosis, or fat burning stage. It sounds like these researchers might be searching for a drug to do the almost same thing, by inhibiting the SRC-2 they discuss, i.e., by inhibiting fat transportation and storage.
Wasn’t sure if anyone would notice that.
2 week quick start. Whole natural nuts (not salted, not roasted), meat, eggs and leafy green veggies/tomato and onion. Not much fun - but your body will not have enough available carbohydrate and your body will instead use fat for energy. After a few weeks, you can start eating stuff like berries and the occassional sweet potato. Couple that with some good exercise daily and you’ll be a lean mean Conservative machine!
Yeah, the third paragraph made me think of the paleolithic diet and the rest of low-carb diets in general.
It sounds like these researchers might be searching for a drug to do the almost same thing, by inhibiting the SRC-2 they discuss, i.e., by inhibiting fat transportation and storage.
Could be but that's way above my bray grade. Going to ketosis involves a change in 'body chemistry' that the drug might not effect.
What we eat determines what kind of “burners” we are for energy. We are supposed to be fat burners. We can only be that if our diet consists of healthy fats, proteins, and produce. People who eat grains and sugars become sugar burners. They actually are begging for metabolic problems and cancer, not to mention obesity if they eat too much. Fat burners who avoid grains and starchy carbs will not get fat. The fat must be clean and healthy to avoid disease though. No transfats, and not too much vegetable oils, rancid fry oils, etc.
They're talking about some way to shut down fat storage. I'm almost certain that insulin, among other things, is considered to be the fat storage hormone. The article doesn't tell us much about just how this fat storage pathway they discuss works, or how it interacts with fat, carbohydrate and blood sugar metabolism.
I still bet they're looking for a drug to interrupt fat storage somehow.
If bile helps in the absorbtion of fat, is there a bile “binding” agent that would cause the bile to pass from the body?
is this why the HCG protocol is everywhere all of a sudden
There are a few diet pills on the market that claim to do that, or something similar. One side effect is globs of fat in your poo.
Thanks for the heads up. I’ve done a little research and came up with this web page http://www.headstartvitamins.com/fatzapper.html
Is this the kind of product you were talking about? Do you know of any others in the market so I can comparison shop?
I am currently at “equilibrium” with regards to my weight and need to go negative so I start to lose again. I have already taken off 20 lbs but took a break during the Xmass season. Due to my work environment, I really dont have time at the moment to add a whole lot of exercise to push that negative though I will be getting back to my swim routine which should help. So if these do help a little, they might be just enough to help me tip the scales in my favor again.
So all we need to do is become Mongolian herders and everything will be okay? With globalism, we are headed for worse which I guess is slim so it’s good! :)
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