Yeonhwa Park and Deborah Good have received a $260,000 grant to investigate a compound with anti-obesity properties.
UMass Amherst Office of News and Information
University of Massachusetts Amherst scientists have received $260,000 from the American Heart Association to investigate a compound with promising anti-obesity properties. The research could eventually lead to new drug treatments for preventing unhealthy weight gain and reduce the incidence of obesity-related illnesses, such as coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
Obesity is a growing problem in the United States that afflicts more than 60 million adults and an increasing number of children and teens. In the search for preventive treatments, scientists had zeroed in on conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a naturally occurring compound found in dairy products and meat. Studies with mice showed that CLA blocked fat uptake by cells and increased the rodents’ overall energy expenditure. But when tested in humans CLA didn’t pack the anti-obesity punch that researchers had anticipated.
Now UMass Amherst food scientist Yeonhwa Park and her colleague Deborah Good, veterinary and animal sciences, will explore the fat-fighting abilities of a chemical cousin of CLA. The scientists will investigate conjugated nonadecadienoic acid (CNA), which is similar to CLA, but may be more effective in the low doses required for human use.
“Preliminary results suggest that CNA is a good candidate,” says Park, “but we need to better understand how it acts to prevent body-fat accumulation.”
More animal studies including tests on mice engineered to be lazy (who then become obese) should answer some of these questions, says Park. “It’s not going to be a magic pill, but CNA may turn out to be very helpful in controlling obesity in humans.”
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