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Scientist identify 'beer belly' enzyme

BaBa-BooeY

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Although the cure won't come in time for this holiday season's weight creep, Boston scientists think they have come up with information that could lead to a new way to reduce the mostly-male problem known as beer belly.


Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have identified a specific enzyme in fat cells that causes them to cluster around the abdomen. Mice with excessive amounts of this enzyme look like the rodent version of Homer Simpson.

If drug companies can create medications to turn off this enzyme, the researchers say, it might help men lose abdominal fat.

Paring down that paunch has implications far beyond male vanity. The kind of fat that sticks around the abdomen, creating a beer belly, is the kind most associated with a higher risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and certain forms of cancer, researchers say.

"Hundreds of studies have led to the conclusion that any fat can be problematic, but it's much, much more dangerous when it's accumulated in the abdomen," said Dr. Jeffrey S. Flier, a Beth Israel Deaconess endocrinologist who is chief author of the study that appears in Friday's issue of Science magazine.

"Pound for pound, intra-abdominal fat is much more likely to cause diabetes, heart disease, and other diseases," Flier said.

His work is part of a wave of new research aimed at figuring out what kind of drugs might help the problem of obesity, which is estimated to cost about $100 billion annually. One in five Americans is considered obese.

Doctor have found only limited success with two drugs now on the market, one that is an appetite suppressant and another that limits the body's fat absorption. Other drugs are in the experimental stages. Two earlier drugs, which in combined form are known as Fen-Phen, were taken off the market in 1997 because of disastrous side-effects on the heart, including some deaths.

But scientists say they are confident that new drugs could help Americans who can't seem to shed pounds, no matter how much they exercise or eat.
 
BaBa-BooeY said:

His work is part of a wave of new research aimed at figuring out what kind of drugs might help the problem of obesity, which is estimated to cost about $100 billion annually. One in five Americans is considered obese.

Wow.
 
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