
A team of scientists is hoping to discover drugs for treating obesity. Scientists have found that there are many other factors contributing to eating habits, apart from leptin and ghrelin.
Jyoti Madhusoodanan, contributing editor, reported that early attempts to therapeutically target leptin and ghrelin, which suppress and stimulate appetite, respectively, were mostly ineffective. But the hormones' discoveries paved the way to a deeper understanding of the chemistry of hunger.
Scientists have found that in addition to leptin and ghrelin, many other factors contribute to eating habits. Protein sensors in the stomach, for example, sense stretch, pressure and volume changes when a person eats, and create a sense of fullness.
But to further improve obesity treatments, drugs will most likely need a more complex approach, given the multiple factors involved in hunger. So researchers are now trying combination therapies to better regulate various parts of the body's appetite control system.
A few more years of research could ultimately bear out this strategy or help redirect the field yet again. The study appears in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN).
Source: ANI
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