The fat on your belly may be there because of stress in your everyday life, and researchers think they may know how to get rid of it.
Studies of mice and monkeys show that repeated stress -- and a high-fat, high-sugar diet -- release a hormone, neuropeptide Y, that causes a buildup of abdominal fat, researchers from Georgetown University reported Sunday.
Manipulating levels of that hormone could melt fat from areas where it is not desired and accumulate it where it is needed, the researchers say in the journal Nature Medicine.
"These are eye-opening findings," said neuroscientist Arshad Khan of USC, who was not involved in the research.
Khan continued: "There are different kinds of fat, and where it is located matters."
Mary F. Dallman of UC San Francisco said in an editorial in the same journal: "A large gap in our understanding of how chronic stressors lead to abdominal obesity has been filled.... Their results were remarkable and have profound implications for new drug development."
Plastic surgeons are particularly looking forward to further results from the study, said Dr. Stephen Baker of Georgetown University Hospital, himself a plastic surgeon and a coauthor of the report. The study could lead to safe and effective replacements for unapproved chemicals, like Lipodissolve, used by some doctors to dissolve local fat deposits.
It could also reduce or eliminate the need for extremely expensive fat replacements used in breast and facial reconstruction and in other surgeries, he said. "In the longer term, we might even be able to use it to prevent obesity. This is the real deal."
The team hopes to begin human studies within two years.
The research began with a simple study of mice. Dr. Zofia Zukowska of Georgetown and her colleagues divided mice into four groups: Two received a conventional diet, and two received a diet high in fat and sugar. Then one group from each diet was forced to stand in cold water for an hour every day, "like the Northern European experience of waiting for a bus with wet feet," she said.
The remaining groups were exposed to an aggressive alpha male for 10 minutes each day, "like having a bad boss."
For the mice on the normal diet, "it really didn't matter whether they were stressed or not," she said. "They didn't have much difference in weight. If anything, the stressed ones weighed less."
