Recently, a new study by a Japanese research team found that taking the anti-aging drug NMN for only 8 weeks can reduce weight even with a high-fat diet.
The researchers fed a high-fat diet to induce obesity in mice, then added β-Nicotinamide Mononucleotide to the high-fat diet for treatment, and set normal diet and high-fat diet alone groups as controls.
After 8 weeks of treatment, the obese mice taking NMN showed a significant weight loss even though they still adhered to the high-fat diet.
They had significantly reduced subcutaneous adipose tissue (sWAT), but no significant change in fat mass in epididymal adipose tissue (eWAT).
Legend: Obese mice induced by high-fat diet, after 8 weeks of experiment, the weight of the mice decreased significantly, and the fat mass also decreased
Epididymis fat belongs to visceral fat, and subcutaneous fat belongs to two types.
In the early stage of obesity, visceral fat will expand rapidly by increasing the volume of adipocytes and promoting lipid regeneration, while the main way of increasing the amount of subcutaneous fat is the enlargement of adipocytes.
The researchers measured the size changes of mouse fat cells and found that the volume of mouse fat cells was also significantly reduced after NMN treatment.
Legend: After taking NMN, the volume of fat cells in mice was significantly reduced in the fat group
In this experiment, it was found that NMN treatment can improve adipocyte hypertrophy and significantly reduce the size of adipocyte volume in mice.
NMN can up-regulate the expression of lipolytic enzyme Atgl through the Sirt1-AMPK axis, induce lipolysis, reduce fat accumulation, and then reduce body weight.
Reference: Imi, Y., Amano, R., Kasahara, N., Obana, Y., & Hosooka, T. (2023).
Nicotinamide Mononucleotide induces lipolysis by regulating ATGL expression via the SIRT1-AMPK axis in adipocytes. Biochemistry And Biophysics Reports, 34, 101476. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrep.2023.101476
