A hormone called oxyntomodulin has been found to effective in helping overweight and obese people lose weight. The hormone works doubly effective by increasing energy expenditure as well as reducing the apetite. According to the researchers, preliminary human trials suggest that this could be a potential treatment against obesity.

"This discovery could provide doctors with a whole new way to treat the current obesity epidemic. We need to get away from the focus on food and start to think about how to increase exercise. The question is how to make people enjoy taking exercise and how to encourage them to do it spontaneously.

The results of the human trials are published in the International Journal of Obesity.

[Source:Imperial College London]

About the author: Ruth Schaffer is a Microbiologist by training and currently authors the Allergy and Biotechnology weblogs for Creative Weblogging, and a Asian travel weblog for b5media.. She is a mother to a bi-racial, bilingual, precocious 3-yr old.