Gene Therapy for Obesity: Lose Weight with a Brain Injection

Are you battling your weight? Do you lose and gain repeatedly on dieting and exercise alone? Are you too scared or unable to receive any of the surgical weight loss procedure such as the LAP-BAND or  gastric bypass? Soon you won’t have to do either of those but instead, receive an injection in your brain that will help you finally take control over genetics, your eating habits and how your body processes food.

According to an article,  Brain Injection Shows Promise For Treating Obesity, researchers at Ohio State University Medical Center have found a revolutionary new way for people to lose weight. A new gene therapy may help people eat less, help insulin sensitivity, and shed fat.

Dr. Matthew During developed this new gene therapy with mice. He found that when he injected a healthy gene already found in the hypothalamus, the mouse’s insulin levels dropped and within a week, the mouse lost half of his weight!

Dr. During believes that this discovery can also work in humans who are overweight because of  genetics. He is taking steps to promote safety in the procedure by including a safety mechanism in the injection and doing a scan of the participant’s brain 4-6 hours after the injection to make sure everything looks okay.

Don’t run out just yet to receive this new weight loss intervention. You’ll have to wait until the Food and Drug Administration approves it, which could take more than a year.

(Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/malias/86009411/)

July 27th, 2009 by Marcelina Hardy | Posted in Genetics and Society | (1)