{"id":274459,"date":"2025-10-03T11:49:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T11:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/274459\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T11:49:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T11:49:09","slug":"new-weight-loss-mechanism-could-one-day-trick-your-body-into-thinking-youve-exercised-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/274459\/","title":{"rendered":"New Weight Loss Mechanism Could One Day Trick Your Body Into Thinking You’ve Exercised : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Burning calories<\/a> isn’t the only way that exercise leads to weight loss.<\/p>\n

A new study on mice, led by researchers at Stanford University and Baylor College of Medicine, has shown that intense physical activity can also naturally suppress appetite.<\/p>\n

Scientists found the bloodstreams of mice subjected to bouts of hard exercise were filled with a metabolite called Lac-Phe<\/a>. In mouse brains, Lac-Phe is thought to stop a specific neural trigger that leads to feeding.<\/p>\n

Related: New ‘Exercise Pill’ Could Induce Fitness Benefits Without Exercise<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The discovery hints at an “exciting possibility”, says<\/a> medical researcher Yong Xu at Baylor. Perhaps in the future, novel drugs could tap into this natural neural mechanism for weight management in our own species.<\/p>\n

The active ingredient in popular drugs like Ozempic<\/a>, after all, was originally developed to mimic a natural hormone<\/a> that regulates blood sugar levels and sugar cravings.<\/p>\n

“This finding is important because it helps explain how a naturally produced molecule can influence appetite by interacting with a key brain region that regulates hunger and body weight,” explains<\/a> biochemist Jonathan Long at Stanford University.<\/p>\n

Not every experiment in mice will translate to humans, but after scientists discovered Lac-Phe in mice in 2022<\/a>, follow-up studies have also revealed the metabolite surging after exercise in humans.<\/p>\n

A recent endurance training study<\/a>, for instance, found that individuals with higher Lac-Phe levels after exercise lost more abdominal fat.<\/p>\n

Now, follow-up experiments in mice have explored how Lac-Phe works at the molecular level.<\/p>\n

In past experiments<\/a>, when scientists bred mice without the ability to make Lac-Phe, the animals ate more after exercise. On the flip side, when diet-induced obese mice were administered Lac-Phe intravenously, it reduced their food intake and decreased their body weight and fat content, improving their blood sugar control.<\/p>\n

“Understanding how Lac-Phe works is important for developing it or similar compounds into treatments that may help people lose weight,” says<\/a> neurologist Yang He from Baylor. <\/p>\n

“We looked into the brain as it regulates appetite and feeding behaviors.”<\/p>\n

The team analyzed two types of brain cells in mice. One, called AgRP neurons, produces a protein that stimulates hunger in the hypothalamus by suppressing another, called PVH neurons, which usually dampens hunger.<\/p>\n

When AgRP production is turned off, PVH neurons reign and reduce overall appetite. Lac-Phe seems to inhibit AgRP neurons.<\/p>\n

\"AppetiteThe role of AgRP and PVH neurons in triggering appetite in mice. (Katarzyna, Cell Metabolism<\/a>, 2023)<\/p>\n

If Lac-Phe works the same way in humans, a drug based on its mechanism could potentially mimic the metabolite to suppress AgRP neurons, and therefore, our appetites.<\/p>\n

There’s still a lot of work to be done before that possibility is ever realized. Research on Lac-Phe is just beginning, but it’s an intriguing start.<\/p>\n

The study was published in Nature Metabolism<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Burning calories isn’t the only way that exercise leads to weight loss. A new study on mice, led…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":274460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[352,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-274459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-msft-content","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115310085151670811","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}