Endocannabinoids in the brain play a key role in food intake and energy use. ‘Modulating’ the action of endocannabinoids could help fight obesity, say researchers at Université de Montréal. But they also urge caution with the idea…
It turns out that brain molecules called endocannabinoids control fundamental
urges such as hunger, depression and anxiety. Hence the connection…
Yet another potentially game-changing discovery has surfaced in the fight against one of the world’s most daunt-ing health challenges: obesity. And an interesting connection…
Another potential ‘silver bullet’?
I’ve often prefaced posts like this one with the caution that there’s no such a thing as a ‘silver bullet’ against major health issues such as heart disease, cancer and obesity. But this marks the second time in just a few weeks tat I’ve been compelled to admit such a thing could exist, after all…
This time, the temptation springs from the discovery that a common brain enzyme might be suscep-table to nudging to reduce one’s food intake.
What they did
Noted neuro-food researcher Dr. Stephanie Fulton of Université de Montréal has been exploring the relationships between the the mechanisms in the human nervous system that control people’s need to eat and to engage in physical activity, and how their metabolism affects their mood. That’s a long-winded way of saying, she’s been interested in the whole complex of phenomena behind obesity.
Most recently, she put together a team to focus on the activity of a certain molecule, known as ABHD6, in moderating hunger signals that might lead to overeating. And they uncovered an unsus-pected relationship with an enzyme called 2-AG.
What they found
“We expected that increasing 2-AG levels would stimulate food intake by increasing cannabinoid signalling,” Fulton reports. “But paradoxically [we] found that, when we deleted the gene encoding ABHD6 in the the [brains of] mice, there was less motivation for food and greater interest in physical activity.”
And that opens a door to the possibility of developing a new drug or drugs that could control the urge in humans to overeat, as well s promote the other component of the traditional fat-fighting duo – regular exercise. The team also found that 2-AG ‘therapy’ did not produce any undesirable side ef-fects. Previous experiments with possible ABHD6 inhibitors produced signs of anxiety and depres-sive behaviour.
The takeaway
Fulton’s team’s latest work helps pave the way for therapies to fight obesity and metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes, the scientists believe.
The next step is to see whether cannabinoid inhibitors such as 2-AG also work in humans. Though more than 100 years of medical research has shown that lab results in mice are often echoed in humans.
My take
This is the second such indication in just a few weeks that a silver bullet may, indeed, exist to fight obesity and its attendant ills. And that would definitely constitute a major medical breakthrough!
And that ‘interesting connection’?
Remember the ‘interesting connection’ I hinted at, at the top of this post? Did you note that the tar-get molecule in the 2-AG intervention, ABHD6, was described as an ‘endocannabinoid’? When some folks take cannabis – the active ingred-ient in marijuana – it makes them hungry.
Now… When you consider that the prefix ‘endo’ means ‘inside’, or ‘manufactued by the body’, canna-bis might be considered an ‘exo’, or external-sourced cannabinoid. There’s your causal link between weed and the munchies! Even Harvard Medical School agrees…
~ Maggie J.