新しい肥満に対する薬の開発。Development of new drug against obesity.
Share for Smileの楓子です。
English follows Japanese.
ご無沙汰しております。大学の試験期間だったためなかなか更新することができませんでした。
今回は肥満に対する薬についてお話ししたいと思います。
「肥満」や「太り気味」と言われるBMI数値の大人は世界中に計42%ほどいます。肥満は心臓病や糖尿病とその合併症などを引き起こす危険因子になりますが、日常生活を改善してもなかなかすぐに健康的になれるわけではありません。
今まで肥満に対する薬はたくさん開発されてきましたが、あまり効果のあるものがありませんでした。レプチンと言われる満腹ホルモンを増やす薬を活用し、食欲を抑えてりするような薬の開発が行われきましたが、肥満の原因が人それぞれ違うためなかなか思うように開発が進みませんでした。
このような薬には血管拡張作用があることがわかっており、肥満気味の方によく見られる、高血圧にも良いことがわかっています。現在はまだ肥満モデルを使用してのテストは行われいませんが、すごく良い仮説であり、効果のありそうな薬だと思いませんか？肥満が引き起こす病気はたくさんあり、その中に命取りになる病気もあります。
ぜひ皆さんも健康には気をつけて、肥満気味の方は生活習慣を見直してみてください！
I’m sorry for not updating much posts these days. I was in the middle of my university exam period.
Today, I would like to talk about the potential new drug to treat obesity.
42% of world population is either obese or overweight according to WHO, and obesity can be a risk factor different problems like cardiac diseases or complications associated with diabetes. Although you change the lifestyle, it is not easy to lose weight and become healthy immediately/
There are different drugs that were developed to treat obesity, for example by controlling a hormone called Leptin, which decreases the appetite. However, for every individual, the cause of obesity is different and these previously developed methods did not work that well.
The drug currently developed is not controlling the appetite, but targets neural signalling molecules called NPY which tries to store fat instead of using them as energy for the body survival (yes, even if that does not need to happen!!). NPY binds to Y1 receptor which is more expressed in obese individual than non-obese individual, and this binding tries to repress the amount of fat getting burn into energy. From this, blocking Y1 receptor prevents the binding of NPY allowing more metabolism and conversion of fat into energy.
This mechanism is also known to have a vasodilation effect, widening of a blood vessel, and since obese people have high blood pressure, this is a beneficial side-effect. Although this hypothesis is not being tested with obese mice model yet, but don’t you think it may change people’s life?
There are so many diseases that could be prevented by staying healthy and have low BMI.
Take care everyone and please look after yourselves 
