A way to reduce the bad cholesterol and fatty acids have been uncovered by researchers in Edmonton, Canada's University of Alberta. We know that this bad cholesterol and the fatty acids end up in the blood when the body metabolizes the food.
This is an important discovery in the sense that it could lead to a new therapy to treat and stop the effects of heart disease and type 2 diabetes which is linked to obesity. We also know that lack of physical activity and too much sugar and fat intake lead to diabetes and heart disease. The school can also do something about nutrition and diabetes.
The above reasoning led the University of Alberta's researchers to study the mechanism behind it. Dr. Richard Lehner and his team were successful in reducing the low density lipids (LDL) and triglycerides in the blood of hamsters and mice. How did they do this?
What they did was influence a particular enzyme to find out how exactly do eating too much fat and sugar and lack of physical activity lead to bad cholesterol. In so doing they found out how an enzyme lets the fatty acids in the liver and fat cells go to the blood and more importantly how to prevent this from happening.
This is an important finding because at the present what is employed to reduce the bad cholesterol are drugs called statins. But this does not treat obesity which is a risk factor in developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease. So the discovery on how to stop the enzyme from releasing the fatty acids into the blood could trigger effort at discovering what can stop this enzyme from doing this.
Dr. Lehner said there is a need for further testing. Also, it should be noted that whatever therapy they discover from this to treat obesity should not be regarded as a magical breakthrough. People should still make wise choices as to what they eat and to exercise in order to achieve optimum health.
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