Researchers studying mice have identified a potential target for
treating diabetes and obesity. Scientists at Washington
University School of Medicine in St. Louis, found that when the
target protein was disabled, the animals became more sensitive
to insulin and were less likely to get fat even when they ate a
high-fat diet that caused their littermates to become obese. The
researchers studied how the body manufactures fat from dietary
sources such as carbohydrates. That process requires an enzyme
called fatty acid synthase (FAS). Mice engineered so that they
don't make FAS in their fat cells can eat a high-fat diet
without becoming obese. "Mice without FAS were significantly
more resistant to obesity than their wild-type littermates,"
first author Irfan J. Lodhi, PhD, said. "And it wasn't because
they ate less. The mice ate just as much fatty food, but they
metabolized more of the fat and released it as heat," he said.
To understand why that happened, Lodhi, a research instructor in
medicine, analyzed their