Top-ups of naturally occurring gut hormone could help tre...( Researchers from Imperial College Londo...),Health

According to their research published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, obese people have on average, a level of PYY3-36 that is one third lower than that of lean volunteers.

The researchers also found that by infusing PYY3-36, they were able to reduce the perceived appetite and calorific consumption of both the lean and overweight volunteers by around a third for a period of 24 hours.

Professor Steve Bloom from Imperial College London and the Hammersmith Hospital, and one of the paper's authors, comments: "The discovery that obese people have lower levels of PYY3-36, an important factor limiting appetite, suggests a possible new treatment for the millions suffering from obesity."

"Our previous research has shown that it is possible to reduce calorific consumption in lean volunteers by giving PYY3-36. These new findings suggest boosting PYY3-36 offers a novel approach towards treating the epidemic of obesity in our society."

Dr. Rachel Batterham, an author of the paper who carried out the research as a Wellcome Trust researcher while at Imperial College London, and who is now based at University College London, adds: "PYY3-36 is a naturally occurring hormone that is released from the gut in response to eating, and it signals to the brain that a meal has been eaten. This deficiency of PYY3-36 we observed in obese subjects could be the reason why some people become obese and others don't. Further research is now needed to establish whether we can change people's diet to increase the release of this hormone."

The researchers studied twelve obese and twelve lean volunteers in a double blind, placebo controlled crossover study. After an overnight fast subjects attended
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Contact: Tony Stephenson
at.stephenson@imperial.ac.uk
44-0-20-7594-6712
Imperial College London
3-Sep-2003