BINDU SURESH
The Gazette, Friday, July 25, 2003

McGill researchers might have discovered a less painful solution for millions of Canadians who combat obesity with crash diets and exercise regimens.

The research team, headed by Dr. Katherine Cianflone of McGill's cardiology department, recently identified a new hormone receptor site, called C5L2, present on fat cells.

"When the (fat-producing) hormone binds to the receptor, it triggers something inside the cell and it makes fat storage increase," Cianflone said.

Though the hormone, acylation stimulating protein, was discovered years ago, the key development is understanding how hormone and receptor work together.

"If you could interfere with the hormone-receptor link, you could potentially slow down weight gain," Cianflone said.

The findings were published recently in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Now that the receptor has been identified, a process that has taken Cianflone's team four years, "some kind of molecule or drug that may prevent the hormone from binding to the receptor" is in the works, but is "many, many years away."

The findings might help to solve the problem of obesity.

More than 30 per cent of the Canadian population is overweight, Cianflone said, and the number is steadily rising.

Obesity-related conditions like diabetes and heart disease, Canada's "two major killers," could also be reduced if obesity were controlled, she said.

But new receptor-blocking drugs, if developed, should not replace dieting and exercise for those trying to lose weight, she warned. "There's no magic pill that can do that without people changing their lifestyles," she said, adding diet and exercise reduce ASP levels on their own.

Dr. Diane Finegood, director of the nutrition, metabolism and diabetes section of the Canadian Institute of Health Research, said Cianflone's findings have brought researchers "one step closer" to curing obesity.

Obesity has doubled in North America in the last 15 years, she said. Finegood also said a healthier lifestyle, including a better diet and more frequent exercise, combats obesity more effectively than drugs. In fact, lifestyle modifications have worked twice as well in clinical trials to reduce obesity and diabetes, she said.

"It would be a mistake to think that we could sit around and wait until a drug approach comes along to solve the problem."

The research was funded by the CIHR and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Quebec.

bsuresh~ thegazette.canwest.com

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Simply "curing" obesity will not reduce insulin resistance, which, in my opinion, is the intermediate symptom that brings on all the other symptoms they are trying to treat, including obesity.

And I have a real problem with some "molecule or drug" interfering with the natural processes in our bodies. What other critical process is being interfered with at the same time?

It's all the same thing we've been seeing... Treat the symptom, not the cause. We need to look at what is truly causing all these symptoms (such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc.), and I think it's excess insulin, which in turn is mostly caused by too many carbs. It's as simple as that.

Oh, well. I'll get off my soapbox now.

;-Deb