http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010802/hl/protein_1.html

Fuzzy math at its best...

Scientists Find Protein That Turns Carbs Into Fat
By Emma Hitt, PhD

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Researchers have identified a small protein in
liver cells that may help convert excess dietary carbohydrates into fat
stores. They hope that the finding will lead to the development of
obesity-fighting drugs that inhibit the actions of this protein.

A team led by Dr. Kosaku Uyeda, of the University of Texas Southwestern
Medical Center at Dallas, identified the protein they call ChREBP in the
liver of rats.

``When people eat desserts, pasta, potatoes or other sugar- and starch-laden
foods beyond the body's energy and nutritional needs, these carbohydrates
become a flood of glucose (sugar), and the liver converts the surplus
glucose to fat,'' Uyeda explained in a written statement.

Uyeda's team determined whether ChREBP responded to excess dietary
carbohydrates by feeding rats either a high-carbohydrate diet or a high-fat
diet without starches. They found that the actions of ChREBP were enhanced
with the high-carbohydrate diet, but not the high-fat diet.

These actions included increasing the activity of at least two and maybe
three enzymes responsible for making fats out of excess carbohydrates, Uyeda
told Reuters Health.

``Inhibition of ChREBP activation would be expected to (lessen) excess fat
accumulation resulting from a high-carbohydrate diet and provide novel
opportunities to address the health consequences stemming from obesity and
diabetes,'' the researchers write in the July 31st issue of the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences (news - web sites).

``By developing drugs to inhibit the actions of this protein, we should slow
down the conversion of excess carbohydrates to fat,'' Uyeda said. ``There is
no medication that acts that way right now.''

But such a drug remains a while off, according to the researcher.

``Now we are just beginning to understand the structure and how this protein
works,'' he said.

The next step, Uyeda added, is to isolate large quantities of the protein so
that research into drug development can begin.

``But,'' he said, ``this may take several years.''

SOURCE: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 2001;98:9116-



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