Published 3 May 2024 at 15.41
Domestic. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet may have found a new way to treat obesity and related conditions by targeting the cells' powerhouses, the mitochondria. A study published in Nature Metabolism shows that a specific class of drugs that block the function of mitochondria can counteract obesity, fatty liver and diabetes in mice.
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Mitochondria are essential to human health because they process the nutrients in the food we eat and extract the energy needed for a variety of processes in the cell. The mitochondria are central to the regulation of our metabolism, which is very dynamic and can be reprogrammed according to different needs or in response to disease.
The research group at Karolinska Institutet has recently developed specific pharmaceutical substances that block the function of the mitochondria, and thus the energy production of the cells , for the purpose of treating cancer. Now the researchers have shown that these drugs also have a beneficial effect on the metabolism of mice.
“Four weeks of treatment led to an unexpected increase in fat metabolism, which resulted in drastic weight loss, reduced fat accumulation in the liver and restored glucose tolerance,” says Taolin Yuan, postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Karolinska Institutet, and one of the study's first authors .
The treatment was given orally to obese male mice fed a high-fat diet. The surprising effect suggests that blocking the cells' energy production can counteract obesity and diabetes.
– It is exciting that we have identified a new potential strategy for treating common diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. We now aim to further investigate the mechanisms that can explain the drugs' effect. We have also started a collaboration with a biotechnology company to see if it is possible to further develop this into a treatment for humans, but it will take many years before we know if it works, says Professor Nils-Göran Larsson, responsible for the study.< /p>