Posted on 07/10/2025 10:54:30 AM PDT by Red Badger
A new drug prevents weight gain and fatty liver by controlling magnesium in cells. It made mice stay slim despite lifelong exposure to an unhealthy diet. Credit: Stock
Scientists have unveiled a small-molecule drug that blocks weight gain and liver damage in mice forced to live on sugary, high-fat food.
The compound works by limiting magnesium inside mitochondria—the cell’s power plants—so energy keeps burning instead of stalling. Treated mice quickly slim down and show no signs of fatty-liver disease, hinting at a future therapy against obesity, heart trouble, and cancer tied to poor diets.
Breakthrough Drug Fights Fat and Liver Disease
Researchers at UT Health San Antonio, working with colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell, have created a small-molecule drug that keeps mice from gaining weight or developing liver damage even when they eat a lifetime of sugary, high-fat food.
“When we give this drug to the mice for a short time, they start losing weight. They all become slim,” said Madesh Muniswamy, PhD, professor of medicine in the health science center’s Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine. The study appears in Cell Reports.
“A drug that can reduce the risk of cardiometabolic diseases such as heart attack and stroke, and also reduce the incidence of liver cancer, which can follow fatty liver disease, will make a huge impact.”
Magnesium’s Hidden Role in Metabolism
The team began by asking how magnesium shapes metabolism—the way cells make and burn energy called ATP. Magnesium is the body’s fourth-most abundant charged mineral, vital for blood sugar control, blood pressure, and bone strength. Yet the scientists discovered that an excess of magnesium inside mitochondria, the cell’s “power plants,” actually slows energy production.
“It puts the brake on, it just slows down,” said co-lead author Travis R. Madaris, doctoral student in the Muniswamy laboratory at UT Health San Antonio.
When the researchers deleted MRS2, a gene that shuttles magnesium into mitochondria, the animals burned sugar and fat more efficiently. The mice stayed lean and healthy, with liver and fat tissue showing no trace of diet-induced fatty liver disease.
Man Stepping on Brake Pedal
Magnesium acts like a brake on energy production, researchers found. Credit: Shutterstock Drug CPACC Mimics Genetic Effect
The drug, which the researchers call CPACC, accomplishes the same thing. It restricts the amount of magnesium transfer into the power plants. In experiments, the result was again: skinny, healthy mice. UT Health San Antonio has filed a patent application on the drug.
The mice served as a model system of long-term dietary stress precipitated by the calorie-rich, sugary and fatty Western diet. The familiar results of this stress are obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular complications.
“Lowering the mitochondrial magnesium mitigated the adverse effects of prolonged dietary stress,” said co-lead author Manigandan Venkatesan, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the Muniswamy lab.
Joseph A. Baur, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania, and Justin J. Wilson, PhD, of Cornell, are among the collaborators. “We came up with the small molecule and Justin synthesized it,” Madaris said.
Major Health Impact Potential “These findings are the result of several years of work,” Muniswamy said. “A drug that can reduce the risk of cardiometabolic diseases such as heart attack and stroke, and also reduce the incidence of liver cancer, which can follow fatty liver disease, will make a huge impact. We will continue its development.”
Reference:
“Limiting Mrs2-dependent mitochondrial Mg2+ uptake induces metabolic programming in prolonged dietary stress”
by Travis R. Madaris, Manigandan Venkatesan, Soumya Maity, Miriam C. Stein, Neelanjan Vishnu, Mridula K. Venkateswaran, James G. Davis, Karthik Ramachandran, Sukanthathulse Uthayabalan, Cristel Allen, Ayodeji Osidele, Kristen Stanley, Nicholas P. Bigham, Terry M. Bakewell, Melanie Narkunan, Amy Le, Varsha Karanam, Kang Li, Aum Mhapankar, Luke Norton, Jean Ross, M. Imran Aslam, W. Brian Reeves, Brij B. Singh, Jeffrey Caplan, Justin J. Wilson, Peter B. Stathopulos, Joseph A. Baur and Muniswamy Madesh, 27 February 2023, Cell Reports.
DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.112155
Funders of this project include the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Defense and the San Antonio Partnership for Precision Therapeutics.
A version of this article was originally published in April 2023.
so magnesium is a/the culprit?
There’s a completely drugfree way to stop getting fat... It’s called... Stop stuffing your face all day, and every day with food.
The way I read it, it keeps your from getting fat, but no mention of what it does if you are already fat.
Death does the same thing and, according to Woody Allen, there are no side effects...
Or just eat reasonably.
It’s like Steve Martin’s plan on how to have a million dollars and not pay any taxes:
1. First, get a million dollars............... 🙄
That’s no fun!.................
“When we give this drug to the mice for a short time, they start losing weight. They all become slim,”
Works for mice!
Magnesium supplements are cheap...................
Just take your magnesium at night to help you sleep—and don’t eat too much before going to bed.
Timing is everything in life.
“When we give this drug to the mice for a short time, they start losing weight. They all become slim,” said Madesh Muniswamy, PhD, professor of medicine in the health science center’s Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine. The study appears in Cell Reports.
Apparently it does also help to lose weight.
Magnesium is a cofactor in hundreds of enzymatic reactions in the body. It cannot be reduced entirely.
There’s a completely drugfree way to stop getting fat... It’s called... Stop stuffing your face all day, and every day with food.
~~~
Try this one trick...
It’s true though, and people’s self-awareness is strongly lacking in this regard.
If you put them in a secure environment, calorie rehab clinic, and restricted them to 1350 calories per day, they would probably complain that they are being starved.
I lost 40 lbs last year. And now I eat good so I can keep it off. It’s hard work and worth it. Sure I eat bad food now and then, but not enough to gain weight. I think I’m doing it the right way. Taking pills isn’t.
Where did they get those before and after silhouettes of mice that look like women?
Since this has been known since 2023, what’s the latest and is it now available?
As an OTC?
One pill makes you larger,
And one pill makes you small.
And the ones that mother gives you,
Don’t do anything at all...................
Why? Do you have fat mice?.......................😁
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