By Walla! SEPTEMBER 17, 2021
Person with fat stomach (illustrative) (photo credit: INGIMAGE)
Some of the most important discoveries in the world of science were
discovered by mistake. For example, penicillin was the first antibiotic
and has saved countless lives. It was discovered by mistake and proved
that science can be very unexpected at times.
Innovations like this are still happening.
Researchers
at the University of Pennsylvania were working on finding a treatment
that might cure diabetes, and then realized that they may have
accidentally developed an innovative, even revolutionary treatment for weight loss.
The researchers published a recent article in the journal Science
describing their experiment on laboratory mice which were injected with
Type II diabetes, which included a therapeutic method that was supposed
to reverse the effects of metabolic disease.
But,
the experiment didn’t go as the researchers expected. Following the
experimental treatment, the mice began to secrete a slippery fluid from
their skin.
"They
sparkled in the light. The mice which were treated shone brightly all
the time and I didn’t know what that meant. These mice lost a lot of
weight and were slippery all the time," said Prof. Taku Kambayashi, the
senior researcher who led this study.
The
shiny, oily substance covered the entire bodies of the mice, and when
the researchers took and analyzed samples, they discovered that it was
fat. This means that the experimental treatment caused the mice to
excrete fat out of their bodies directly through the skin.
The treatment that the researchers tested in the study is called TSLP (thymic stromal lymphopoietin).
It’s a cytokine (a protein which controls immune cell activity)
that’s been proven to activate immune cells that control inflammation.
Inflammatory
regulation plays a critical role in preventing Type II diabetes and
obesity. The researchers thought that if they could get TSLP to
hitchhike a virus and infiltrate the body, it might trigger an immune
response that would counteract the effects of Type II diabetes.
To
do this, the researchers coated the protein on a vector of adenovirus,
which has already proven to be successful in various experimental
treatments. After the treatment was injected into the bodies of the mice
it caused them to shed their weight quickly by secreting excess skin
fat (sebum) in higher amounts than usual. In fact, the researchers found
that the substance secreted from the mice's skin was white adipose
tissue (a common type of fat).
During
the research, the mice lost about half the amount of white fat in their
bodies, including abdominal fat, a stubborn and challenging type of fat
that tends to accumulate around vital organs that studies show has a
strong link to increased mortality risk.
The
significance of this accidental discovery may be fateful, like winning a
lottery. Science and medicine are desperately looking for effective,
reliable weight loss methods, due to the steady rise in obesity rates
and related morbidity around the world.
Along with its anti-obesity benefits, TSLP treatment may also help with skin problems, such as eczema.
Yet,
at this stage all that can be learned from this study is that there is a
therapeutic channel for which it’s worthwhile and justified to expand
investigating, with the help of comprehensive studies that will
systematically and thoroughly examine its effectiveness and safety -
especially in humans.
The
goals that the researchers set for themselves: to identify the mechanism
that causes the body to secrete sebum and to try to translate this into
an effective and safe treatment method for humans.
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