A new protein in the body could change how you control your weight

The discovery of a previously unknown protein could soon help doctors and healthcare professionals control the growing rate of global obesity according to a new study from researchers at Boston University. 

Global obesity has more than tripled since 1975 based on data from the World Health Organization, which estimated more than 1.9 billion people were overweight worldwide. 

Of the billions of people who the World Health Organization said fell into the category of overweight individuals, there was a smaller group of 650 million that it considered to be obese.  

Such a large number of overweight and obese individuals is a serious healthcare issue as well as a burden for governments since the conditions can be linked to a wide variety of diseases.

Being overweight or obese can lead to an increase in all-cause mortality as well as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and many more problems according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Luckily, a group of researchers from Boston University’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine has discovered a new signaling molecule that could help us scientists better understand the mechanisms behind why some people are prone to obesity and eventually help control it. 

The signaling molecule, which is a protein that can be influenced by pharmaceutical drugs, was discovered in 2020 by Professor of Pathology Nader Rahimi and called MINAR2.

“This finding can help to unravel new aspects in the mechanisms of obesity and diabetes, which could lead to the development of novel therapeutics for the prevention and treatment of obesity and diabetes,” Rahimi said according to a press release about his research. 

A recent paper authored by Rahimi and several other co-authors was published in the journal Molecular Metabolism and explained why MINAR2 was an important discovery, how they came to figure out its usefulness, and what promise it holds for future research.

In order to study the role of the new protein in weight gain, Rahimi and his co-authors fed MINAR2-deficient rat subjects a normal non-fat diet, which increased the rat subject’s fat ratio according to the press release on the group's research. 

When MINAR2-deficient rats were fed a high-fat diet, they gained weight much faster than their control group and ended up developing the telltale signs associated with obesity, including impaired glucose and the precursors of type-2 diabetes. 

Researchers found that the systems which regulate metabolism in the body of mammals were hyperactivated in the MINAR2-deficient rats, leading them to state that the molecule played an important role in obesity and the development of metabolic disorders.

“Anti-obesity therapy has proven challenging and most of the anti-obesity medications to date have poor or insufficient efficacy with questionable safety,” Rahimi explained. 

“MINAR2 is a druggable molecule and drugs that target MINAR2 could lead to the development of effective therapeutics,” Rahimi was quoted as saying in the press release on his and his co-author’s study.

The Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine went on to state that controlling body fat was one of “the greatest scientific challenges of our time” but noted that the discovery of MINAR2’s role in obesity could lead to promising therapeutics for controlling weight gain. 

More study is needed to fully understand MINAR2 but Rahimi believes that it could become the best tool in our healthcare arsenal to eventually target diet-induced obesity.