Manipulating hormone receptors may help in the fight against obesity
2012-09-20
(Press-News.org) In the body's ongoing effort to maintain a healthy weight, an arsenal of cellular proteins called androgen receptors is critical for blocking fat accumulation. Now researchers reporting in the September issue of the Cell Press Journal Chemistry & Biology have discovered that naturally occurring steroids called glucocorticoids can thwart the receptors' activity, ultimately encouraging fat buildup.
"This has implications in this era of an obesity epidemic," says senior author Dr. Michael Mancini, from Baylor College of Medicine. "If you can reduce glucocorticoids, you might be able to upregulate, or increase, androgen receptor activity and regulate fat storage."
The discovery came after Dr. Mancini and his team searched for genes or signals expressed specifically by human fat cells with the hope of gaining a better understanding of fat deposition and the development of obesity. They used a novel approach that combined gene expression studies with automated microscopy and specialized image analyses.
The approach showed that the androgen receptor is both expressed and functional during the early stages of fat cell differentiation. "Activation of the androgen receptor can inhibit the early stages of human fat maturation," says first author Dr. Sean Hartig, also from Baylor College of Medicine. The finding makes sense because androgens such as testosterone, which bind to androgen receptors, are known to favorably direct muscle differentiation, regulate muscle mass, and increase lean body mass as humans age.
The researchers also found that glucocorticoids decrease androgen receptor activity and alter the effects of androgens on fat storage. The result is deposition of fat throughout the body, particularly in the abdominal region. "Using a custom-developed image analysis software platform usually found only in large pharmaceutical screening centers, we applied specific algorithms to sensitively detect the glucocorticoid inhibition of androgen receptor activity," says Dr. Mancini.
The research suggests that treatment strategies that modulate the activity of glucocorticoids and the androgen receptor—perhaps in combination—may help combat obesity.
###
Hartig et al.: "Feed-forward Inhibition of Androgen Receptor Activity by Glucocorticoid Action in Human Adipocytes."
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2012-09-20
EUGENE, Ore. -- (Sept. 20, 2012) -- University of Oregon scientists have found a way to correctly reproduce not only the structure but also important thermodynamic quantities such as pressure and compressibility of a large, multiscale system at variable levels of molecular coarse-graining.
The method is a mathematically driven predictive modeling of a real system, built on liquid state theory, and utilizing powerful computing resources. The team's theory appears in the Sept. 21 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.
Understanding multiscale systems is of vital ...
2012-09-20
The cost of sequencing the entire human genome, or exome – the regions of the genome that are translated into proteins that affect cell behavior – has decreased significantly, to the point where the cost of looking at the majority of a patient's genomic data may be less expensive than undertaking one or two targeted genetic tests. While efficient, the acquisition of this much genetic data – in some cases as many as 1.5 to 2 million variants – creates other challenges.
In a paper that appears today in the advance online edition of Genetics in Medicine, researchers from ...
2012-09-20
Anyone who wants to lose weight has a wide variety of diets to choose from, but knowledge of what works is often poor. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Uppsala University have now evaluated a Swedish commercial weight loss programme called Itrim, and found it to be effective. After one year, participants had lost 11 kg on average.
"Most of the participants lost a lot of weight in the first three months and then showed very good weight stability after one year," says Erik Hemmingsson, researcher at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital's Obesity ...
2012-09-20
On average, children in Switzerland are 9 years old when they use the internet for the first time. They spend on average 64 minutes per day online, which is substantially less than the European average (88 minutes). These are the results of a new study carried out by the Institut für Publizistikwissenschaft und Medienforschung (Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research) at the University of Zurich. The survey was conducted in the German-speaking and western part of Switzerland with 1,000 children and young people as well as one of their parents in each case.
Internet ...
2012-09-20
We are not all the same when it comes to illness. In fact, the risk of developing a disease such as diabetes or heart disease varies from one individual to another. A study led by Emmanouil Dermitzakis, Louis-Jeantet Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva (UNIGE) reveals that the genetic predisposition to develop certain diseases may differ from one individual to another depending on their sex. Together with his collaborators, the professor has shown that genetic variants have a different impact on the level of gene expression between men and women. ...
2012-09-20
Nurses can play a key role in feeding people and restoring their humanity in times of great crisis and this was very evident during their little-known involvement in the liberation of Bergen-Belsen at the end of World War Two. That is the key finding of a historical research paper published in the October issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing.
"Much has been written about the role of the armed forces and medical teams during this distressing time in our history, but the contribution of nurses is rarely mentioned when it comes to the liberation of this concentration ...
2012-09-20
A study at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili and the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) reveals that humans from the Upper Palaeolithic Age recycled their stone artefacts to be put to other uses. The study is based on burnt artefacts found in the Molí del Salt site in Tarragona, Spain.
The recycling of stone tools during Prehistoric times has hardly been dealt with due to the difficulties in verifying such practices in archaeological records. Nonetheless, it is possible to find some evidence, as demonstrated in a study published in the ...
2012-09-20
Research carried out at The University of Manchester has found further evidence that a simple solution, which is already used in IV drips, is an effective treatment for reducing inflammation.
The researchers also identified that hypertonic solution, which is a solution with an elevated concentration of salt, can ease inflammation purely through bathing in it – proving the Victorians were right to visit spa towns to "take the waters" for ailments like rheumatoid arthritis.
The research team, led by Dr Pablo Pelegrin, was investigating how cell swelling can control inflammation; ...
2012-09-20
A team of KIT researchers directed by Professor Christian Koos has succeeded in developing a novel optical connection between semiconductor chips. "Photonic wire bonding" reaches data transmission rates in the range of several terabits per second and is suited perfectly for production on the industrial scale. In the future, this technology may be used in high-performance emitter-receiver systems for optical data transmission and, thus, contribute to reducing energy consumption of the internet. The scientists published their results in the journal "Optics Express".
Communication ...
2012-09-20
A person can be obese and metabolically healthy at the same time, which means that this person will have the same mortality risk for heart disease or cancer that people of normal weight. This is the conclusion of a study published in the prestigious journal European Heart Journal [1].
"Obesity is associated with a large number of chronic diseases as heart diseases or cancer. However, there is a group of obese people that do not suffer the metabolic complications associated with obesity", the author of the study, Prof. Francisco B.Ortega, explains.
Prof. Ortega is currently ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Manipulating hormone receptors may help in the fight against obesity
