Single enzyme may be linked to obesity

Fat is harmful to health -- we all know that -- and abdominal, or "beer belly" fat, is the worst. “Obesity is a massive problem in our population,” says researcher Jeffrey S. Flier, who has been studying the molecular mechanisms of obesity for the past decade. “It's linked to a huge burden of disease -– hypertension, coronary disease, atherosclerosis, cancers, reproductive disorders, diabetes. In fact, an estimated 80 percent of diabetes cases would not exist in the absence of obesity. If we could attack obesity, not only would people feel better, it would also improve all of these other disease states.” Flier, an endocrinologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the George C. Reisman Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and his colleagues recently discovered that a single enzyme in fat cells may be linked to obesity. The researchers did their study with mice. The findings could eventually pave the way for future drug development to curb visceral obesity –- the “beer belly” fat concentrated in the abdomen. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and Eli Lilly.