A Cure for Obesity

Obesity is a growing problem in the world. As Dr.Beshel mentioned in her talk, one third of the global population is obese. The number of obese people has been increasing since 1990 due to changes in eating environments. Obesity is becoming a big concern for many researchers because of its consequences. Obesity became the leading cause of death in the United States overtaking tobacco. This obesity epidemic encouraged different fields of research to conduct studies that would help in understanding obesity and developing potential treatments that would help people lose excess weight.

 The article “Seeking an Obesity Cure, Researchers Turn to the Gut Microbiome” discusses a study conducted by Dr.Yu that tests ways to improve metabolic health. In this study, researchers are suggesting that body weight can be changed through fecal microbiota transplants or F.M.T. Researchers found that there is a large difference between microbiomes of obese and lean people suggesting that these bacteria can be playing a role in weight regulation. In this treatment, gut bacteria from lean donors were transferred to the guts of obese people. The goal of this study was to find bacteria that can protect against metabolic disease and help obese patients lose some weight. Unfortunately, the results of this study did not show improvement in obese patients’ metabolic health. However, in a clinical trial that was published in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers gave obese patients supplements containing a gut microbe associated with leanness that led to some weight loss and decreased their cholesterol, inflammation and insulin compared to a control group. The results of this clinical trial suggest that gut microbiomes can be changed in a way that would benefit obese patients. The end goal of these F.M.T. studies is to produce new drugs or probiotics that would alter microbiome in a way that would help obese people loss weight.

 In a different field of research, neuroscience, Dr.Beshel is studying NPY circuits and leptin in attempt to understand obesity and how it can be prevented or reduced. Leptin is a hormone that plays a role in weight regulation. The release of leptin from body’s fat cells is supposed to decrease eating, however, obese people who produce a large amount of leptin still gain weight. By studying drosophila, Dr.Beshel and colleagues showed that upd1(unpaired1) and npf in the fly are functionally conserved with the mammalian leptin and NPY circuit. Dr.Beshel’s research showed that disturbing brain derived upd1 in drosophila causes symptoms of mammalian obesity which is consistent with what leptin deficiency cause. After discovering a conserved neural circuit in drosophila, Dr.Beshel is using this fly model to understand leptin regulation and release. Understanding the basic mechanism of leptin synthesis and signaling can potentially explain leptin resistance in obese patients. This study attempts to understand where does the systems breakdown with excess leptin production in obese people. The ultimate goal of Dr.Beshel’s research is to understand leptin to be able to develop new therapeutics for obesity treatment.

 Researchers from both studies, fecal microbiota transplant and leptin hormone, are seeking a treatment for obesity. They are both looking at different body mechanisms that could help in understanding how to maintain or lose weight. Researchers are seeking a treatment for obesity other than changing to a healthy diet and increasing exercise. The success of either of these studies can help in ending the obesity epidemic and improving the life of one third of the global population.

 Works Cited
 O'connor, Anahad. “Seeking an Obesity Cure, Researchers Turn to the Gut Microbiome.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Sept. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/well/eat/seeking-an-obesity-cure-researchers-turn-to-the-gut-microbiome.html?searchResultPosition=2.

Beshel, Jennifer, et al. “A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila.” Cell Metabolism, vol. 25, no. 1, 2017, pp. 208–217.