Blocked enzyme, gluttony and weight loss

Eat as much as you like and never gain weight, this is the implication of recent reseasrch at the Baylor College of Medicine​ in Houston. Scientists, led by Salih J. Wakil, found that if an enzyme called acetyl-CoA carboxylase 2, or ACC2, is blocked in mice, the animals can eat much more food than other mice and still weigh 10 to 15 per cent less. Baylor researchers identified a gene that makes ACC2 and then bred mice that lacked both copies of the gene. Such animals are called "knockout mice" because a gene has been knocked out or muted. The knockout mice were permitted to eat as much food as they wanted, for as long as they wanted. A control group of mice with normal genes were fed the same way. Even though they ate about 40% more than the control mice did, the knockout mice lost weight, the scientists claim. They are now testing compounds that could be used in a pill to block the tested in mice and then in higher animals, such as monkeys, said Wakil. He said that if all goes well, the pill could be tested in humans within five years. Full findings are published in this weeks publication of the journal Science​.