Hopes revive for weight loss as young Turkish scientist cures obesity in mice

Hopes revive for weight loss as young Turkish scientist cures obesity in mice
Leptin, an appetite-suppressing drug, failed years ago due to brain resistance, however, a young Turkish endocrinologist achieved to revive hopes with his latest study that stops resistance to Leptin.

Leptin, a hormone acts in part by diminishing the amount of pleasure people get from food, generated hope when it was first found in 1995 for effective obesity treatment. But then it was revealed that obese people were unresponsive to Leptin because of quick brain resistance.

Billions of dollars spent by giant pharmaceutical companies and great efforts exerted by scientists --to understand the molecular mechanism of Leptin resistance-- have all failed so far.

But now, Umut Özcan, a young Turkish scientist at Harvard University, said he and his team achieved to stop that brain resistance in obese mice by the help of a drug combination.

We have started our research two years ago and we achieved significant weight loss in mice," 32-year-old assistant professor Özcan told the Anatolia news agency.
Researches on laboratory rats take usually 10 years to be conducted on humans. However, Özcan said that drugs used in his research were FDA-approved, available over the counter and that they were being used by people.
"As these drugs have no toxic effects, this combination can be tested on humans directly," he said.
"I think our research has resurrected hopes in obesity treatment," he added.