An immunosuppressant for senior citizens suffering from obesity

According to a new American study, a medication used to help with transplant rejection has resulted in reduced appetite and body fat in older rats. This is a hopeful sign in the fight against obesity among older people.

Age brings with it numerous changes to the body, including weight gain and a reduction in muscle mass.

Scientists from the University of Florida have discovered that rapamycin, a pharmaceutical substance generally used to prevent transplant rejection, could reduce the appetite and body fat in older rats. The team worked with rats over the age of 25 months, the equivalent of 65-year-old humans, tested so that their corpulence and weight gain mirror those of obese seniors.

After a few weeks of a treatment using rapamycin, the scientists noticed a loss of 13% body fat in the rats.

Their conclusions, published in the Journal of Gerontology, indicate that this substance could have the capacity to target the way in which the body produces leptin, a hormone secreted by the fat cells that regulate metabolism and appetite.

According to the hypothesis put forth by the team, rapamycin succeeded in stabilizing the levels of leptin production in the animals.

Professor Christy S. Carter, co-author of this study, states that “in this case, we feel like we restored the body composition to that of a young animal.”

The scientists continued by testing the medication on younger overweight rats. There they also noticed stabilization in the production of leptin and underline, as a common point between the two cases, rapamycin’s capacity for action on any rat, young or old, as long as they are overweight.

The team stresses that the difficulty lies in finding the proper dosage. Too little of this substance didn’t reduce body fat, but did however increase the amount of glucose in the blood.

Clinical trials still need to be run on humans in the future before determining if rapamycin can function with the human body and brain. If that is the case, this discovery could be the first step towards the creation of a treatment for obesity.

In the USA, it is estimated that there will be 73 million senior citizens by 2020, one third of them obese.

• Health Care Industry