Accordion effect: hormone that can prevent it is discovered – 05/07/2023 – Equilibrium

Discovery may help keep metabolism active during dieting period. Tests carried out on mice yielded promising results. Anyone who has tried to lose weight must have heard about the dreaded “rebound” or “accordion” effect, which happens when we give the body fewer calories than usual, causing it to enter a state of energy savings. When we go back to our normal diet, therefore, we end up gaining weight again.

But that problem may now be a thing of the past. Canadian scientists believe they have discovered a hormonal signaling pathway capable of helping to keep metabolism active even after reducing food intake.

“In mice, we found that GDF15 [fator de diferenciação de crescimento-15] blocks the slowdown in metabolism seen during a diet, accelerating the wasteful cycling of calcium in muscle,” said Gregory Steinberg, a researcher at McMaster University in Canada.

Key in the fight against obesity

The body produces GDF15 naturally, primarily in the liver and kidneys. The study is consistent with previous research, which has shown that the hormone and its associated receptor, GFRAL, influence the amount of food ingested by rats.

Although this is just a small indication, which indicates that it is still necessary to know if the hormone can have the same effect in humans, the first results are promising. Especially when you take into account that obesity is expected to affect almost 1 billion people worldwide by 2030.

In the future, GDF15 could be used in combination with existing drugs to create more effective appetite suppressant treatments for those who haven’t had much success with conventional diets.

“Further studies investigating links between GDF15-GFRAL signaling, muscle calcium cycling, and energy expenditure in humans before and after weight loss will be important to further establish the therapeutic potential of this pathway in adaptive thermogenesis,” wrote the authors. researchers in the article published in the scientific journal Nature at the end of June.