SCI transl Med: a cancer fighting compound that may help fight obesity and diabetes

February 11, 2020 / Bio Valley / recently, a research report published in the international journal Science Translational Medicine, scientists from the University of New Mexico and other institutions found that a compound called g-1, which can resist cancer, may help reduce the fat content in the body of obese mice, although g-1 is currently in phase 1 clinical trials of cancer But researchers are planning pre clinical trials to use g-1 to help fight fat in the body of obese people Photo source: cc0 public domain obesity affects the health of 40% of American adults, which can lead to a variety of health problems, including heart disease, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes According to CDC data in the United States, obesity and its related diseases far exceed other causes of death in the population Currently, drugs for obesity cannot effectively inhibit obesity or it will bring serious side effects Researcher prossnitz said that at present, we are studying GPER, which is a G-protein coupled estrogen receptor activated by g-1, because GPER can affect specific breast cancer cells When breast cancer drugs such as tamoxifen and fluvectin group block the estrogen receptor in the nucleus, they can activate the GPER found in the cell membrane Previous studies have shown that GPER plays a key role in the development of cancer cell resistance to tamoxifen and its similar drugs Therefore, researchers want to know whether g-1 will affect the function of non cancerous cells when estrogen is absent Low estrogen level in women's body is a major sign of menopause, and postmenopausal women will have an increased risk of multiple diseases Including heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes, so to understand whether g-1 can affect the metabolism of postmenopausal women, the researchers studied mice with low estrogen levels The researchers found that the body weight of female mice with low estrogen level increased rapidly, even in the normal diet, and it will soon progress to obesity and diabetes When the researchers use g-1 to deal with these obese female mice, the body weight of these mice will be reduced and diabetes will disappear The researchers believe that the weight loss of mice is not caused by eating too little or walking too much, it is caused by a key operation of the body on the intake of calories Instead of storing calories as fat, mice will use them as fuel Prossnitz said that the metabolism of mice will change and their energy consumption will increase In addition, the researchers also studied male mice (with low estrogen level), who were fed a high-fat diet (making them fat and suffering from diabetes), and treated them with g-1, although the treated mice did not Weight loss occurred, but it did not gain extra weight, just like the non treated mice; however, it is worth noting that the diabetes of the treated mice was improved The results show that g-1 may have an independent effect on obesity and diabetes The metabolism of male mice treated with g-1 will be more healthy, but they are still in the state of obesity Finally, the researchers fed low-level estrogen female mice a high-fat diet, and the mice quickly became obese However, just like the sisters on the normal diet, when they received g-1 treatment, their body weight lost and their diabetes symptoms improved Relevant research results showed that there might be gender differences in drug effects, or male and female GPER signals in sex cells were different In order to study how g-1 can increase the energy consumption of the body, the researchers studied brown fat cells, and they were surprised that when g-1 is used to treat cells, the cells will consume more energy As the researchers observed in mice, this suggests that g-1 may reduce obesity by targeting brown fat cells that burn extra calories Then the researchers conducted a series of experiments to reveal how signals from GPER can induce cell changes, so as to promote more energy to be used by the body The researchers hope that in the future, g-1 may bring revolutionary changes to the development of new therapies for metabolic disorders At the same time, the researchers began clinical trials To test the potential of g-1 against obesity and diabetes in humans Original sources: geetanjali Sharma, chelin Hu, Daniela I staquicini, et al Preclinical efficiency of the GPER selective agonist g-1 in mouse models of obsity and diabetes, Science Translational Medicine (2020) Doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aau5956