EurekAlert! -- Here’s good news for anyone trying to lose weight or has osteoporosis: Scientists from Maine are on the trail of a weight loss drug that may revolutionize how we treat these two conditions. In a new research report published in the September 2010 print issue of The FASEB Journal, the researchers describe a newly discovered protein, called “Sprouty,” responsible for regulating body fat and bone mass. Then they manipulated how much of this protein was expressed in different groups of mice specially bred to have some human genes. They found that the more of this protein that the transgenic mice expressed, the leaner and stronger they became. Furthermore, the scientists found that when mice with low levels of the Sprouty protein were made to express more of it, they lost weight and increased bone density.
