The newly discovered molecule, called Interleukin-6, has apparently paved way for inventing new drugs to combat diabetes and obesity. This was concluded in an international project where researchers from Vitagenes, a company that is a part of the Campus program promoted by the University of Granada (UGR).
The technical director, Jose Luis Mesa, of Vitagenes (situated in the Technological Park of Health Sciences (PTS)), collaborated in this project in conjunction with other distinguished scientists of the University to Melbourne and the Baker Heart Research Institute (Australia). Jose Luis Mesa was among the main authors of this study. The most pertinent result of the project that corroborated the statement ‘a potential treatment to prevent diabetes and obesity’ found a place for itself in the international scientific journal of Endocrinology.
The misconceived molecule
The amazing aspect about this study is that, erstwhile the evidence showed that the molecule Interleukin-6 that was chronically high in diabetic and obese people was considered a threat to diabetes and obesity, but this study negated that evidence completely.
In the words of Jose Luis Mesa, "No study had tried to inject interleukin-6 directly to analyse if this molecule was really harmful or, to the contrary, could help to prevent obesity and diabetes". He further states, “our hypothesis was that interleukin-6 was naturally high in diabetic and obese persons precisely to combat such diseases. In order to prove it, we injected human recombinant interleukin-6 daily for two weeks and analysed its behaviour and its effects on the metabolism".
The statement of Mark Febbraio, scientific director in the Baker Heart Research Institute and a member of the Advisory Scientific Committee of Vitagenes, further confirms the validity of this study. He stated, “…we obtained surprising results. The exogenous administration of interleukin-6 improved insulin sensitivity and the absorption of glucose, essential for diabetics".
In connection with obesity, Jose Luis Mesa points out that “interleukin-6 also increased the expression of important genes related to fats metabolism, such as PPAR and UCP2. This suggests that interleukin-6 could be involved in the metabolic control of body weight".
Vitagenes, though managed to find a better use of the molecule Interleukin-6, still maintain that this is a preliminary study conducted in animal models and that further studies are required to be conducted in humans to establish definite conclusions.
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