In a new study, researchers have for the first time designed a substance that combines 3 metabolically active hormone components, which offers new hope to people suffering from obesity and diabetes.
The team headed by physician scientist Matthias Tschop (Helmholtz Diabetes Center at HMGU and Metabolic Diseases Chair at TUM) and peptide chemist Richard DiMarchi (Indiana University) has been cooperating for almost a decade to invent improved therapeutics for type 2 diabetes and obesity, and have now succeeded in developing triple hormone (GLP-1, GIP and glucagon) reduces body weight even more effectively and improves insulin sensitivity.
It dramatically reduces blood glucose, appetite, and body fat in animal models while also improving fat content in the liver, cholesterol levels and calorie burning even more effectively than with previously available single action or dual action molecules. The tri-agonist can reduce body weight by around 30 percent, roughly twice as much as a dual co-agonist at the same dose, while massively improving insulin sensitivity, essentially curing the rodents of obesity and diabetes.
Tschop said that the latest breakthrough showed that they were on the right path to designing better treatments in the fight against obesity and diabetes.
The objective of research was to establish new approaches to the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of major widespread diseases and to further develop these as quickly as possible in the sense of translational research in order to produce concrete benefits for society.