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Oranges May Hold ‘Magic Bullet’ Against Obesity

A team from the university of Western Ontario has made what could be a breakthrough discovery in the quest to manage obesity. Their findings thus far are based only on mouse-based studies, but hopes are high that they will translate to humans. Further studies are planned…

WHO Obesity Infographic - © World Health OrganizationObesity is at the root of a whole laundry list of diseases and conditions that
shorten our lives and cost the health care system billions every year…

Dr. Murray Huff says his research group first noted that mice in a controlled experiment, which were fed a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet and dosed with a special substance found naturally in Sweet Oranges and Tangerines, “were noticeably leaner and had reduced levels of insulin resistance and blood fats compared to mice that were fed a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet alone.”

The substance is called nobelitin, and Huff has been studying it for more than a decade.

They then went further, demonstrating that they could reverse obesity and its effects in mice: “We went on to show that we can also intervene with nobiletin,” Huff says. “We’ve shown that in mice that already have all the negative symptoms of obesity, we can use nobelitin to reverse those symptoms, and even start to regress plaque build-up in the arteries, known as atherosclerosis.”

How it works remains a mystery

Huff says his first assumption was that nobelitin works through the same system as diabetes drugs such as Metformin. That’s known as the AMP Kinase mechanism, in which the Kinase enzyme acts as a regulator that turns on the the body’s system for burning fat and blocks the manufacture of new Fats. But subsequent experiments revealed that nobelitin is not connected with the AMP Kinase process. As it stands now, Huff and his team remain baffled as to how it achieves the effects it does.

Onward and upward

The up side is, the team’s efforts have shown that nobelitin won’t interfere with Metformin and other diabetes drugs that work through the AMP Kinase system. That helps clear the way for Human trials, to confirm that the new substance offers the same benefits for people as it has for mice.

“Obesity and its resulting metabolic syndromes are a huge burden to our health care system, and we have very few interventions that have been shown to work effectively,” Huff observes. “We need to continue this emphasis on the discovery of new therapeutics.”

My take

As skeptical as I am about any claim by scientists that they’ve found a ‘silver bullet’ against any disease or condition, I must admit to some optimism about Huff’s nobelitin discovery. His comment about the burden obesity and its related diseases and conditions places on society is a gross understatement. We could save hundreds of billions of dollars a year world-wide in health care costs, and redirect some of that money to other scourges such as cancer. Let’s hope Huff and his team are right about the potential of nobelitin. Meanwhile, eating a Sweet Orange or Tangerine a day just might help keep the doctor away!

~ Maggie J.