Can Your Immune System Be Suppressing Your Weight Loss Efforts?
For most people, losing weight is no easy challenge. Eating less and moving more are indeed effective ways to shed some pounds but it doesn’t always work like that. According to new research, the human body has a very powerful reaction to defend against weight loss. And this involves the immune system.
“We normally think of the immune system as something that guards against infection and diseases. However in evolutionary terms, a sudden or rapid weight loss could be a more immediate threat to survival. This immune system response contributes to why people really struggle to lose weight, despite their best efforts to control calories and do exercise. Our findings give us a much better understanding of why this is so and they illustrate the dynamic role that the immune system plays in regulating body weight", says Professor Donal O’ Shea, Consultant Endocrinologist at St Vincent’s University Hospital and a Fellow in UCD Conway Institute at University College Dublin, one of the lead authors on the research paper.
They found that a common immune cell - invariant natural killer T cell (iNKT cell) - plays a key role in setting off a complex chain of events that regulate and enhance weight loss.
This cell is needed to help fat cells make a small protein called fibroblast growth factor-21, (FGF-21), which triggers the body to metabolise or turn white fat into a much healthier brown fat. This browning of white fat uses large amounts of energy, leading to increased metabolic rate and weight loss.
“We know that people who are obese often have sluggish immune systems and a lower amount of these iNKT cells. With less iNKT cells, the body doesn’t make FGF-21, and this prevents the body from converting white fat to change it into brown fat.” explains Dr Lydia Lynch, Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School, co-author of the study.
Professor O’Shea believes that these findings represent a significant step forward in our understanding of why people often find it so hard to lose weight, despite their best efforts. She also said that the findings underlie the absolute importance of prevention of weight gain.
Their study was published in the journal Cell Metabolism.
Source of this article:
Cell Metabolism iNKT Cells Induce FGF21 for Thermogenesis and Are Required for Maximal Weight Loss in GLP1 Therapy
@Copyright 2016 by www.NaturalTherapyForAll.com All Rights Reserved
Featured Practitioner: http://www.naturaltherapyforall.com/new/detail.php?id=637
Other Practitioners: Weight Loss Wirral