How Enzymes Might Help You Lose Weight

Researchers are always trying to come up with new ways to assist weight loss, and according to some recent research from the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre, there might be an enzyme that can change the way your body processes sugar.

The enzyme is called glycerol 3-phosphate phosphatase (G3PP), and its job in the body is to control glucose and utilize fat, but it’s also been discovered that it can help to detoxify sugar from our cells.

Going off that function, researchers are of course considering ways to increase that function in an attempt to stop the toxic effects that sugar can have on our organs.

Basically the body needs glucose and fatty acids to run, but it’s very important that the body is handling those things correctly because when they get off balance we can experience health issues. For example, when our insulin levels are too low then the body will shoot up the blood sugar and send fatty acids into the bloodstream. This can lead to issues like obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular issues.

In essence too much fatty acids and glucose becomes toxic to the body. However, G3PP can break down the excess glucose and send it outside of the cells, which can start protecting the organs right away.

According the to the study author Murthy Madiraju:

“This is the very first report on this enzyme and its physiological importance and possible applications. We are currently embarking on the development of drugs that can activate this enzyme; the idea is to identify and develop such drugs, which can be taken orally, but this is further down the lane and may take a few years.”

The possibilities around the enzyme are that it could be used to treat people who are already suffering from obesity, diabetes, or any of the other health complications that come out of the issues with excess glucose in the body.

Before any studies can be done on humans with this idea in mind however there will need to be sufficient research done on animals first. PLaying around with blood sugar levels can be a complicated science.

As for whether this enzyme might also be helpful to the average healthy person trying to drop a few, the researchers said:

“When we did the experiments on normal (not obese) rats, by increasing the enzyme level, we could see a small but noticeable decrease in body weight gain (by 5-6 percent). It is possible that this observation can translate to humans—BUT only further studies can verify this.”

Time will tell, but it seems like a big step in the right direction.