Both the Chronicle and the Wall Street Journal ($) have front page stories on the research project that Dr. Wadih Arap, a cancer biologist at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston’s Texas Medical Center, is leading a study that offers a potential new approach to treating obesity and is also showing promise in cancer treatment. The results are being published in the June issue of the journal Nature Medicine.
Such research is becoming increasingly important because several recent studies are revealing that many of the improvements in health that medical advances have bestowed upon middle-aged and older Americans will likely be effectively erased over the next 20 years if Americans’ weight continues to increase.
The researchers said they melted away body fat in laboratory mice by cutting off the blood supply to fat cells. The agent is a drug the researchers designed to home in on blood vessels cells linked to fat tissue and then deliver an agent that induces the cells to self-destruct. As the blood vessel cells died, the fat tissue essentially vanished.
Weight-loss drugs typically seek to suppress appetite or increase the body’s metabolism to make it burn more calories. However, the body can quickly compensate for the effects of such drugs, making it difficult to lose and keep off weight. Accordingly, the new research is important because it could decrease the amount of fat in a completely novel way.
Dr. Arap cautions that only mice have been studied so far and that what works in mice often fails in people. Even if additional research goes well, it would probably be several years before any treatment could reach the market.
No corporate sponsors were involved to date in the study. The research has been funded with grants from the National Institutes of Health and several philanthropies. M.D. Anderson has filed patents related to the approach, and its institutional policies enable Drs. Arap and other researchers in the project to benefit financially if the strategy is commercially developed.
As far as potential corporate sponsors go, I recommend highly that the researchers get in touch with a certain doughnut makere.