Newly discovered protein gets to the roots of obesity and osteoporosis

“When the U.S. military has to turn to fitness gurus like Tony Horton to help its soldiers slim down, you know obesity is a serious problem,” said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, “and all you have to do is visit to a nursing home to see the devastating effects of osteoporosis. “Sprouty” -well named- gets to the roots of extra fat and shrinking bone.”

To make this discovery, the researchers studied two groups of transgenic mice, one group with a genetic deletion of the Sprouty gene in cells that develop into fat and bone, and the second group with high levels of expressed Sprouty proteins in the same cell types.

Read more…