We all know that losing weight can be a tough battle. If you’ve ever tried to diet, you know how challenging it can be to maintain the weight loss.
Scientists at McMaster University might have found a new helper in this battle: a hormone named GDF15. This hormone could play a role in weight loss and keeping the pounds off.
The Role of GDF15
The scientists, led by Professor Gregory Steinberg and researcher Dongdong Wang, were curious about GDF15.
This hormone had previously shown to reduce appetite when people took a drug for type 2 diabetes called metformin. The researchers have discovered that GDF15 might also help with weight loss.
Why does this matter? Obesity, affecting a billion people worldwide, can lead to health problems like type 2 diabetes. So, scientists are always searching for effective ways to help people lose weight.
The Experiment and Findings
The researchers experimented with mice. They found out that GDF15 stops the slowdown of metabolism that typically happens during dieting. Metabolism is the process by which your body burns food for energy.
A faster metabolism means you burn more calories, which can help with weight loss. GDF15 boosted this process in the mice’s muscles but not in their fat tissue.
Interestingly, the mice that were treated with GDF15 kept losing weight, even though they ate the same amount of food as the other mice.
This suggests that GDF15 could potentially help people keep weight off after dieting.
What’s Next?
However, more work needs to be done. Professor Steinberg says they need to check if the same thing happens in humans. If it does, this could explain why some people lose weight more easily than others.
The research on GDF15 could also lead to new ways to help people who find it hard to lose weight with traditional diets. This hormone could potentially make appetite-suppressing drugs more effective.
These promising findings on GDF15 and weight loss are the result of an international collaboration involving researchers from Canada, China, and Denmark.
This study opens a new door to understanding weight loss. It brings hope that one day, we might have more effective tools to help us lose weight and stay healthy.
As the saying goes, every little bit helps! And a hormone boost could be a big help in the weight loss battle.
If you care about weight management, please read studies about diets that could boost your gut health and weight loss and 10 small changes you can make today to prevent weight gain.
For more information about obesity, please see recent studies that low-carb keto diets could manage obesity effectively and results showing popular weight loss diets linked to heart disease and cancer.
The study was published in Nature.
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