Like Liposuction, Without the Surgery
July 2, 2007 — -- Scientists at Georgetown University Medical Center have found a natural chemical in mice that seems to control the formation of fat. While the scientists have many more years of work ahead of them, they said the same chemicals may very well work in humans.
The researchers, who have published their findings in this week's edition of the journal Nature Medicine, told ABC News they discovered that a compound called neuropeptide Y -- NPY for short -- attaches itself to fat cells and promotes their growth.
Watch Ned Potter's report tonight on "World News with Charles Gibson" at 6:30 p.m. EDT
What's more, they found a second compound that would get in the way of NPY. When they gave mice small injections, the mice lost weight, even if they ate high-fat diets and were subjected to the kind of chronic stress that is often linked with obesity.
"This is exciting stuff," said Dr. Stephen Baker of Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, who co-wrote the study. "It's really liposuction in a bottle. You can take the compound out, inject it and basically the fat would melt away."
The mice in the experiment were made to live what the researchers jokingly called a modern American lifestyle. They were fed pellets made with lard and sugar. And every day for 10 minutes they were subjected to the kind of stress many people would recognize -- they had to share their cages with a more aggressive "alpha" mouse.
Most of the mice responded by getting fat around the abdomen and, most ominously, in organs such as the liver and heart. This is something doctors call metabolic syndrome in humans. It is linked to high cholesterol levels, hypertension stroke and heart attacks.
But the NPY blocker turned out to be an antidote.
"In the mouse where we actually injected our compound that blocks this receptor you see eradication and void where that fat used to be," Baker told ABC News. "And I think that truly is an amazing finding."
Baker is a plastic surgeon by training. He joined the experiment because he does reconstructive surgery -- such as breast reconstruction after a woman has had a mastectomy --
