A pill that allows dieters to gorge on junk food without putting on a pound is being developed by scientists.
The couch potato’s dream, it would allow people to eat all their favourite foods without worrying about their waistline.
The wonder drug would also protect against diabetes, liver disease and other debilitating conditions associated with unhealthy eating habits.
The breakthrough hinges on the discovery of a metabolism ‘masterswitch’ – a gene key to weight control.
Mice lacking the gene, known as IKKE, stay slim despite being fed a lard-based diet.
The ‘knock-out’ mice also free of the liver problems associated with a junk food diet and appear to be protected against diabetes, the journal Cell reports.
Researcher Alan Saltiel (CORR) said: ‘We’ve studied other genes associated with obesity – we call them “obesogenes” – but this is the first one we’ve found that, when deleted, stops the animal from gaining weight.
Diet pills
‘The fact that you can disrupt all the effects of the high fat diet by deleting this one gene in mice is pretty interesting and surprising.’
It is thought that the gene makes enzymes called kinases that help regulate metabolism.
Removing the gene – and the kinases – speeds up metabolism, leading to more calories being burnt.
Dr Saltiel said: ‘Perhaps most interestingly, the mice burn more calories even though they aren’t eating any less or exercising any more.
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Drinking milk regularly could help you shed weight, finds a recent study.
In a two-year weight loss study, milk drinkers had an advantage over those who skipped the milk, reports the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Researchers led by Danit Shahar from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, found that adults who drank nearly two glasses of milk daily, which provided the highest Vitamin D levels at six months, lost more weight after two years than those who had little or no milk or milk products — nearly six kilograms weight loss, on average.
More than 300 overweight men and women aged 40 to 65 years, took part in the study following low-fat, Mediterranean or low-carb diets for two years, according to a Ben-Gurion statement.
Regardless of diet, researchers found participants with the highest dairy calcium intake six months into the study (averaging about 580 mg daily- the amount in nearly two glasses of milk) lost about six kilograms at the end of the two years, compared to about 3.5 kg for those with the lowest dairy calcium intake (averaging about 150 mg, or about half of a glass).
Beyond calcium, the researchers also found that Vitamin D levels independently affected weight loss success and in line with previous research, milk and milk products were the top contributors to Vitamin D in the diets of the study participants.
Despite the potential health benefits, many Americans are still not getting the recommended 400 international units (IU) of Vitamin D daily — the amount in four glasses of fat free or low-fat milk.