A protein has been discovered that could be at the heart of future weight loss and obesity programs. He is an Italian, the researcher Davide Ruggero of the University of California at San Francisco, to have shown, in a study conducted on mice and just published in the journal Nature Metabolism, just as it is enough to reduce its activity, genetically or pharmacologically, to reduce the purchase of extra pounds, even if a diet rich in fats were to be adopted. The protein in question is Elf4e, it plays a role in initiating protein synthesis and is found in all cells of the body.
“We discovered that the Elf4e protein helps to store fat, and the mice with only 50% of this protein ate a lot but did not gain weight”, Ruggero explains to ANSA. Obesity develops when a person consumes more energy than he spends. With a high-fat diet, the fats accumulate in different organs, in what are called the “lipid droplets”. An excess of them in the liver, for example, leads to diseases such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (fatty liver).
The researchers noted that the activity of the Elf4e protein is responsible for the formation of fat droplets, and the mice that have less not only had normal livers despite their high-fat diet, but were also more energetically active. “If normal mice and those with fewer Elf4e ran a marathon after eating, they would win because they burn fat more efficiently,” the researcher continues.
According to scholars, the increase in Elf4e activity is one of the main causes of tumors and for this reason the group led by Ruggero had already developed a drug that is now in an experimental phase for patients suffering from different forms of cancer. In this latest work, the researchers also showed that this drug decreases the levels of obesity, fat accumulation and fatty liver disease in mice fed a high-fat diet.
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