Cell: will glutamine help reduce fat be a good news for obese people?

In addition to some people's pursuit of aesthetics, the key reason why obesity needs to be paid attention is that obesity actually affects health A large number of research evidence points out that obesity is closely related to diabetes and cardiovascular disease, especially people with too much abdominal fat are prone to suffer from metabolic syndrome such as "three highs" How to help obese people live healthier is the subject of many researchers Recently, scientists from Karolinska Institute in Sweden and Oxford University in the UK found that a common amino acid called glutamine can help obese patients reduce inflammation of fat tissue and reduce fat content The results were recently published in cell metabolism In this study, the team first recruited more than 50 obese women and nearly 30 non obese women to collect samples of their abdominal fat and compare the local metabolism of fat tissue They found that glutamine was the most different metabolite between the two groups The glutamine level detected in adipose tissue of obese group was significantly lower than that of the control group, and the corresponding relationship was related to body fat volume, but not BMI Further analysis showed that the lower the glutamine level released from adipose tissue, the larger the swelling of fat cells, in other words, the larger the fat particles contained in each fat cell What does this relationship between glutamine and fat cells mean? So the team then analyzed the underlying mechanism through animal experiments and cell experiments They found that the level of glutamine affects the expression of different genes, which does not change the DNA sequence in cells, but changes the DNA modification, which results in epigenetic differences Specifically, low glutamine levels lead to increased expression of pro-inflammatory genes in adipose tissue As we all know, inflammation leads to many diseases In this case, appropriate increase of glutamine can help fat tissue reduce inflammation? The researchers tried to inject glutamine into obese mice After two weeks, glutamine did cause less inflammation in adipose tissue than in the control group In addition, the body fat and blood sugar level of mice also decreased, which indicated that they became more healthy! "Our results show that glutamine changes gene expression in several cells, in this way it plays an anti-inflammatory role in adipose tissue." Professor Mikael Ryden, a senior physician at Karolinska college and one of the study's lead authors, said: "during long-term obesity, glutamine deficiency may occur, leading to epigenetic changes, which may aggravate inflammation in the body." Some readers may want to ask, how about adding some glutamine to obese people? The researchers are careful to point out that there is no rush and that further understanding of which genes and cellular processes are most affected is needed Because glutamine is also a favorite amino acid for cancer cells "More research is needed on possible long-term side effects before glutamine is recommended as a dietary supplement to help treat obesity and its complications." We are looking forward to the follow-up research results of scientists, which can develop an effective obesity treatment plan as soon as possible, so that people can be fat and healthy even if they are fat.