Scientists have been trying to find a way to fight obesity for a long time. But what if we just didn’t feel hungry? No hunger, less food, less weight – sounds simple. Read on to find out what a new American study discovered.

How to switch off hunger

American scientists based in Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee conducted a research on causes of obesity. They discovered that there is a way to beat the problem at the cellular level. For the first time researchers described a specific type of a cellular receptor. When activated, the receptor shuts off the feeling of hunger.

The team led by Jens Meiler, a professor at Vanderbilt University, involved researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai and Leipzig University in Germany. The international team managed to determine the 1st crystal structure for a neuropeptide Y receptor, deciphering thousands of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and other atoms it made of. Meiler called it a huge step forward.

“The big contribution of this paper is to list the atoms with all the specific coordinates of where they sitting in space and where they are bound to each other. We’ve actually found where there are little pockets in the structure where we can build a small molecule to bind”, she explained.

The professor also compared earlier investigations with trying to design a key while not knowing the shape of the actual keyhole. Previously many companies could not succeed because they did not exactly know what the receptor looked like. No wonder they were not able to “fit a key”.

When can we use the hunger switch?

It would be great to get the remedy for obesity as soon as possible, but it’s still too early in the research, scientists say.

First of all the study’s results need to be checked. Scientists strive to confirm that this particular receptor actually is responsible for controlling hunger. Previous studies showed that when the receptor is blocked from functioning in mice, they became obese.

When you eat, this peptide is produced. Then the peptide activates the receptor, therefore you don’t feel hungry anymore and stop consuming food. “The idea here is that we could upregulate this receptor with a small molecule and create this feeling of not being hungry so that you eat less,” Meiler explained.

So, while academics are busy with trying to design an acting molecular hunger switch, we should simply follow the golden rule: Eat lots of fresh vegetables and fruit, avoid sugar, exercise and watch your weight. It works!

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