Great Weight Loss Discovery:Enzyme That Controls Appetite Discovered

Enzyme that reduces appetite and helps in weight loss: A group of researchers from Duke University Medical Center, have managed to reduce appetite and promote weight loss by blocking an enzyme CaMKK2  in mouse brain.

"We believe that we have found a good target for the development of drugs that are so powerful it would affect metabolism in  threefold: appetite control, weight loss and blood sugar management," said study leader Tony Means, Professor and Head of the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology.

For many years scientists have identified and tested each step of stimulating the appetite and processes  which ceased this stimulation, in order to find a target to attack. All these studies aimed to find how people can better control body weight and to minimize the risk of developing diabetes, heart disease and other health conditions.

CaMKK2 enzyme activation, is only one step in stimulating appetite path, which is located in the hypothalamus. Empty stomach, stimulates the release of the hormone ghrelin, which causes a large number of signals that at the end, it results  in increased appetite. The authors of this study believe that CaMKK2 in the way of secreting the hormone gherlin, could be a "target" that  should be studied, since it activates AMPK enzyme that stimulates animals to eat and gain weight.

They tested their theory in many ways. At first they blocked CaMKK2  in rat, with a particular molecule inhibitor and then measured food taken. These mice had eaten less food compared with rats that were not treated, and had also lost weight, which had prompted scientists to think that they are close to a new discovery.

Then they have studied a number of mice that do not produce CaMKK2 and found that inhibitory molecules did not change anything in making food or weight reduction. The fact that blocking CaMKK2 had succeeded in mice that produce this enzyme, whereas it had no effect in mice lacking the enzyme, shows evidence that CaMKK2 signaling is a prerequisite for the control of appetite.