Researchers have discovered a hormone that mimics the effects of exercise and blocks the negative health impact of eating a high-fat diet.
Scientists at University of Southern California (USC) Leonard Davis School of Gerontology found that the hormone can fight weight gain caused by a high-fat Western diet and normalises the metabolism - effects commonly associated with exercising.
The hormone, dubbed MOTS-c, primarily targets muscle tissue, where it restores insulin sensitivity, counteracting diet-induced and age-dependent insulin resistance.
"This represents a major advance in the identification of new treatments for age-related diseases such as diabetes," said Pinchas Cohen, dean of the USC Davis school and senior author of a study on the research published in the journal Cell Metabolism.
To test the effects of MOTS-c, the team injected the hormone into mice fed a high-fat diet, which typically causes them to grow obese and develop a resistance to insulin.
The injections not only suppressed both effects in mice, they also reversed age-dependent insulin-resistance, a condition that precedes diabetes.
"This discovery sheds new light on mitochondria and positions them as active regulators of metabolism," said Changhan Lee, assistant professor at USC Davis and lead author of the study.
MOTS-c is unique among hormones in that it is encoded in the DNA of mitochondria - the "powerhouses" of cells that convert food into energy. Other hormones are encoded in DNA in the nucleus.
While all of the experiments on MOTS-c have been performed on lab mice, the molecular mechanisms that make it function in mice exist in all mammals, including humans, researchers said.
The MOTS-c intellectual property has been licensed to a biotechnology company, and clinical trials in humans could begin within the next three years, Cohen said.
