A Vaccine for Obesity

It's not an invitation to eat anything you want. It won't make junk food healthy. But a new anti-obesity vaccine that may help those people who cannot lose stubborn weight or who suffer from "yo-yo dieting," where they constantly lose and then regain weight, may be right around the corner.

The new vaccine has been successfully tested on mice at the Scripps Research Institute. It was proven to slow weight gain and reduce body fat. It tackles a hormone known as ghrelin, which occurs naturally in the human body and helps regulate energy usage. Ghrelin promotes weight gain and fat storage in the body, decreasing the breakdown of fat and discouraging the expenditure of energy. When a person is dieting, the body reacts as though it is in danger, producing higher levels of ghrelin than during times of normal eating. This not only slows the weight loss, but actually increses appetite. Speculation is that this is an evolutionary response to the "feast or famine" dilemma of early man.

According to Kim Janda, PhD, who co-authored the paper on the vaccine and is a chemistry professor at the Scripps Institute,

“We’re not claiming that our study answers the question of obesity treatment once and for all. What we are saying—and what our study confirms—is that this looks like a serious workable solution to the problem. And while much more research is needed to understand the full therapeutic potential of immunopharmacotherapy in combating obesity, these initial results are extremely positive. Right now it appears that active vaccination against ghrelin is one avenue that can slow weight gain and fat build-up in the body.”

It should be noted that the mice in this experiment were fed relatively low-fat, healthy diets. The researchers stress that it is not known if the vaccine would help prevent obesity in those people who habitually follow the typical unhealthy, high-fat, burger and fries type American way of eating. Obviously, there are many health problems associated with unhealthy eating which the vaccine would not address.