Researchers from Purdue University in Indiana are testing a compound found in red wine that has the ability to block the processes of fat cell development. The research into the compound known as piceatannol may lead towards finding a simple method to combat obesity.
Piceatannol results from the conversion of resveratrol – a compound found in red wine, grapes and peanuts that is also thought to combat cancer, heart disease and neurodegenerative diseases. When resveratrol is converted into the piceatannol compound, which naturally occurs after consumption, the compound has the ability to delay fat cell growth.
"Piceatannol actually alters the timing of gene expressions, gene functions and insulin action during adipogenesis, the process in which early stage fat cells become mature fat cells," explains Kee-Hong Kim, an assistant professor of food science at Purdue University. "In the presence of piceatannol, you can see delay or complete inhibition of adipogenesis."
Young fat cells develop over a period of 10 days or more and go through several stages of development before becoming mature fat cells. The researchers are currently testing the effects of the piceatannol compound during the early stages of fat cell development before mature fat cells occur. "These precursor cells, even though they have not accumulated lipids, have the potential to become fat cells," Kim said. "We consider that adipogenesis is an important molecular target to delay or prevent fat cell accumulation and, hopefully, body fat mass gain."
The research found that piceatannol binds to insulin receptors of immature fat cells in the first stage of adipogenesis, blocking insulin's ability to control cell cycles and activate genes that carry out further stages of fat cell formation. In other words, piceatannol is able to block the immature fat cells from maturing and growing.
Professor Kim will now start testing the compound with an animal model of obesity and hopes to find a way to protect piceatannol from degrading in the bloodstream. "We need to work on improving the stability and solubility of piceatannol to create a biological effect," Kim said.
Kim explains the study in the video below.
Source: Purdue University
Resveratrol is also available in grape juice. So teetotalers should also be able to take advantage of this. Darn it, FDA, hurry up and approve resveratrol supplements.
I agree with Gadgeteer. The FDA kills people by trying to be so damned safe, and they still get it wrong all the time! The FDA's system of approval is broken and people die as a direct result every single day. New treatment and drugs are approved far, far too slowly in the U.S. and it costs lives. The number of lives lost due to the FDA's slowness well exceeds the few lives that would be lost by considerably ramping up the approval process. Neither is ideal, but the losses by too fast of an approval process are more tolerable than the losses by too slow of one.
You are forgetting some basic facts of human evolution. Gaining weight (fat) is a long ago developed instictive behavior with very important survival value. All mammals seem to share that behavior because it works. Prior to the adoption of agriculture, virtually all animals, including humans, went through periods of plentiful food interspersed with periods of food shortage. The ability to gain weight helped guaranteed survival until food became plentiful again. It is only in the last 10,000 years that this survival mechanism (weight gain by accumulating fat) has become a significant health problem. Thinking that we can overcome millions of years of evolution by eating brocolli is wishful thinking at best. It's time to realize weight gain is a product of our evolution and will only be overcome through intervention by things mentioned in the article above.
In this case, the writer of this article should have explained why drinking red wine/grape juice or eating grapes doesn't provide the same effect in people. I don't believe that the answer to obesity is ever going to be found in a simple pill.
I lost quite a few pounds once. Plump middle aged ladies would latch on to me at parties and enquire, furtively, what my weight-loss secret was.
I would look them directly in the eye and say "eat less".
Their looks of crushed disappointment were priceless.