Daily GDF15 treatment has sex-specific effects on body weight and food intake and does not enhance the effects of voluntary physical activity in mice
Stewart Jeromson, Michael Akcan, Bradley Baranowski, Meagan Arbeau, Annalaura Bellucci and David C. Wright
In this weeks #FridayRead we take a detour from stem cells and development into the fascinating field of study into weight and weight loss intervention.
In this paper by Stewart Jeromson in the lab of David Wright at the BC Children’s Hospital, Vancouver, they uncover some striking sex-related differences in the effect of GDF-15.
GDF-15 is an atypical TGF-β family member, its release is stimulated through cellular stress, including exercise, pregnancy and cancer. GDF-15 binds to GFRAL receptor, located in the hindbrain and leads to behavioral changes including reducing food intake and voluntary physical activity.
This GDF-15 linked reduced food intake has the potential to have therapeutic benefits if combined with increased physical activity.
In this mouse study, they set out to discover whether combining GDF-15 treatment with voluntary wheel running would have beneficial effects in attenuating weight gain and the accumulation of adipose tissue.
They demonstrated that GDF-15 reduces food intake and prevents weight gain, but only in male but not female mice consuming a high-fat diet. Although GDF-15 induced an initial reduction in food intake in female mice, this was followed by a period of rebound hyperphagia resulting in no differences in total food intake.
Highlighting the importance of including males and females in study design they conclude that adaptive changes in female’s food intake to preserve bodyweight could potentially limit any effectiveness of GDF-15 as a treatment.
This article uses Qkine high purity GDF-15 (Qk017) for daily treatment, view and buy online
For another interesting read about recombinant GDF-15 and issues surrounding its purity read our blog ‘The Cautionary Tale of GDF-15’