The American Heart Association has given a University of Massachusetts food scientist $260,000 to research a compound that could possibly help to prevent or treat obesity and obesity-related health conditions.
Yeonhwa Park, the grant’s recipient, along with her colleague Deborah Good, will be studying the effect of conjugated nonadecadienoic acid (CNA) on the ability of fat to be used by muscle as opposed to being absorbed or deposited.
“The project has two goals: to find a dose low enough of CNA to apply to humans and to look at the possible side effects for CNA especially focusing on if there is insulin resistance created which could hinder diabetes insulin from being absorbed,” said Park.
The grant, which is a one time amount of $260,000 will last for four years and will require Park to give a yearly progress report. The money will be mainly used to fund the project, buy supplies, purchase equipment and help with the upkeep of the animals used for the testing.
Park will be using regular mice to study their reactions to CAN and to see if the compound can help to prevent obesity or any of the illnesses associated with obesity, such as heart disease or type-two diabetes.
Park’s associate Deborah Good will be supplying a different set of mice, which have developed inactivity-induced obesity. This means that the older they get, the less they move around, causing them not to lose weight at a normal level. This second set of obesity-induced mice will also be given CNA to see if the compound can treat obesity.
The previous compound used to research anti-obesity was conjugated linoleic acid (CLA.)
“CLA, which has been successful with preventing obesity in mice at a daily dose of 56 grams (one pill equals one gram,) has not been so consistent in humans due to the low dosage of 3 to 6 grams a day. But 56 grams is not realistic for humans,” said Park about the previous studies on anti-obesity research.
CLA has been found to be a naturally occurring fatty acid originally found in dairy and meat. It has also been found to help prevent cancer, to help reduce body fat, and to help reduce athero sclerosis (blood-clotting.) In mice it has been able to block cells from absorbing fat and given the mice more energy. Some concerns which came up with CLA have been the amount or dosage pertaining to humans. The side effects were also an issue, some of the mice had no reaction at all; there is an inconsistency with the reactions.
“We wanted to test CNA on both sets of mice to see if it is able to treat or prevent obesity. CNA could be more effective than CLA with mice and maybe with humans as well with a safe dosage of course,” said Park.
CNA is a compound that does not occur naturally and has to be manufactured. Since the drug is unlike CLA in that regard, it will have to go through a great deal of testing before CNA can be tested on humans. Since it has to be manufactured, CNA also cannot be used as a dietary supplement.
The FDA will eventually have to approve the drug, but only after a great deal of testing.
“There is no magic pill to make you thin, we are only trying to help fight obesity and the illnesses that come with it,” said Park.
Yeonhwa Park received her bachelors and masters degrees in pharmacology at Seoul University in South Korea. She earned her PhD in food science at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She lives in Amherst with her husband Heewon Yang and their two children Jeremy, seven, and Annette, five.
