Breakthrough of the fat loss pill as scientists develop a drug that will make you lean no matter how many calories or junk food you eat

Scientists are one step closer to a miracle pill that keeps people thin no matter how much they eat.

The University of Texas team has developed a drug that speeds up the body’s metabolism and makes it much more efficient at breaking down sugar and fat.

It does this by preventing magnesium from being transported to the mitochondria, the part of the cell responsible for producing energy and burning calories.

Magnesium seems to slow down the mitochondria’s ability to produce energy.

Mice given the drug and fed a high-calorie Western diet “got lean” despite eating more calories than they burned.

While mice fed the same high-calorie diet and not given the drug saw their body fat increase.

In addition to body weight, the mice given the drug also had lower cholesterol and lower blood sugar levels than those on a typical mouse chow diet.

It suggests that the drug – called CPACC – also wards off any health consequences of a poor diet.

Dr. Madesh Muniswamy, a University of Texas biochemist who led the research, said: ‘A drug that can reduce the risk of cardiometabolic diseases such as heart attack and stroke, and also reduce the incidence of liver cancer, which can follow fatty liver disease. , will have a huge impact. We will continue its development.

The team has filed a patent application for the drug and hopes to test it in humans in the coming years.

The researchers have been studying the role of magnesium in metabolism for years – the chemical reactions in the cells of the body that convert food into energy.

They previously showed that too much magnesium slows down energy production in the mitochondria, the so-called ‘cellular power plants’.

That finding inspired the new drug, which works by deleting a specific gene called MRS2, which promotes magnesium in the mitochondria.

By turning off this gene, it reduces the amount of mineral entering the cell and thereby improves metabolism.

Fourteen-week-old male mice were subjected to a Western diet for up to a year.

After 30 weeks, mice on a typical animal chow diet became obese, while the mice given the drug in addition to following the equivalent of a Western diet gained nowhere near as much weight yet remained lean and healthy.

Dr. Muniswamy said, ‘If we give this drug to the mice for a short time, they start to lose weight. They’re all getting slim.’

Those mice also showed lower levels of a liver enzyme called alanine aminotransferase (ALT), indicating that the liver was in good working order.

The same cannot be said for mice on a high-fat diet without the added benefit of CPACC.

Mice put on a high-fat “Western” diet were more likely to be obese compared to mice given a drug that interfered with the action of a gene that codes for magnesium movement in the cell’s “powerhouse” known. as mitochondria

Energy expenditure, which translates into calorie burn, was significantly lower in mice fed a Western diet with functioning Mrs2 transport

There were some major limitations of the study, most of which are that the medication was tested in mice, and much more extensive research will be needed to formulate a version suitable for humans.

And the Mrs2 gene was completely turned off in some mice, meaning researchers couldn’t study its effects on specific organs.

Mrs2 is present in several organs, including the brain, heart, kidneys and lungs, and shutting it down completely can have a negative effect elsewhere in the body.

The research has been published in the journal Cell reports.