Humans aren’t alone when it comes to the consequences of a high-fat diet. In fact, mice deal with some of the same outcomes that humans do when they overconsume fatty foods, from obesity to metabolic dysfunction, to heart disease and diabetes. However, mice at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have helped researchers identify a possible solution to these outcomes — a solution that resides within the fat cells of humans and mice alike.
Revealing their results in a new study in Cell Metabolism, the researchers found that the overproduction of a certain hormone called Fibroblast Growth Factor 21, or FGF21 for short, led to healthier metabolisms and longer lives in adult mice that had been fed a diet of high-fat food. According to the team, this hormone — which is produced by an assortment of body tissues, including fat cells themselves — could contribute to a host of new treatments that could have similar outcomes for the metabolisms and lifespans of humans.
“This is the first long-term aging study to demonstrate the powerful protective effects that FGF21 exerts through fat tissue,” said Philipp Scherer, a study author and professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern, according to a press release.
