We as a society love trying to find an easy way to lose weight and get in shape, though any supplement you may find doesn’t exactly deliver what you expect it to.
That may change however thanks to new research from a team combined of researches from Stanford University and Baylor.
Apparently, the team has discovered a molecule in the human body that keeps people from getting hungry following a workout, and are working on developing an “anti-hungry” pill that exploits that molecule.
The study’s lead author, Professor Yong Xu from the Baylor College of Medicine in a statement, per StudyFinds, “Regular exercise has been proven to help weight loss, regulate appetite and improve the metabolic profile, especially for people who are overweight and obese. If we can understand the mechanism by which exercise triggers these benefits, then we are closer to helping many people improve their health.”
Through studying mice, the team identified a modified amino acid called Lac-Phe, and when the rodents were fed a high-fat diet, a high dose of Lac-Phe “halved” food intake over a period of 12 hours compared to a control group, without affecting their movement or energy expenditure.
Also, when Lac-Phe was fed to the mice over a period of 10 days, it reduced consumption and body fat while improving glucose tolerance.
Dr. Jonathan Long, a Standford Medicine assistant professor of pathology, says that these finds suggest Lac-Phe “is an ancient and conserved system that regulates feeding and is associated with physical activity in many animal species.”
So what comes next?
Prof. Xu says, “Our next steps include finding more details about how Lac-Phe mediates its effects in the body – including the brain. Our goal is to learn to modulate this exercise pathway for therapeutic interventions.”
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