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researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have identified the mechanism by which a
hormone called
FGF21 helps improve glucose control and metabolism
and what this study does is it shows that one big factor in this
is the ability of FGF21 to stimulate what's called browning
of white fat, that is where the white fat becomes more energetically active
and begins to burn energy rather than store energy. This
improves weight loss and it also improves glucose levels
FGF21 is secreted by the liver the researchers wanted to know if the
hormone's beneficial actions depended on
insulin signaling pathways in liver tissues. So they knocked out those
pathways
in some of the subjects. They then pumped FGF21
into the subject systems for two weeks if FGF21 was dependent on
those pathways
there should have been no improvements in glucose metabolism
and what we found was that even without insulin signaling in liver
FGF21 could still improve glucose metabolism
and subsequently, of course, we showed that's in large part because
of these effects on fat. To prove this they removed the brown fat from the subjects
showing that the beneficial effects were a result of white fat browning,
rather than just the activation of brown fat. The stimulation browning could
have potential for drug creation.
There's a lot of interest in FGF21 as a potential
drug that's why several drug companies are now working on it
and whether it be the FGF21 itself for maybe some derivative of it
so I do think that this has a chance to have effects