combat the obesity it has become one of the objectives of all health professionals due to its pandemic dimensions. For this reason, any investigation related to this pathology is always .
In this line, a group of researchers from the CIBER of Diabetes and Associated Metabolic Diseases (CIBERDEM), of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau (IIB Sant Pau) in Barcelona, has studied the role of a form of vitamin B3 to prevent body weight gain in mice, shown that nicotinamide (a form of vitamin B3) protects against diet-induced accumulation of excess fat.
As they explain from , the vitamin B3 acts on the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and proteins.
And it is found in foods such as tuna, chicken, peanuts, salmon or serrano ham.
Well, one of its forms is the nicotinamidea natural precursor of the “nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide” (NAD+) molecule, found in food and used as a dietary supplement.
As indicated by the researcher Josep Julveof the group .
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“The NAD+ molecule is very important for the energy metabolism of cells, protecting them from stress derived from adverse conditions such as obesity. And for this reason, the supplementation of the diet with nicotinamide could therefore represent a effective therapeutic strategy“.
The intracellular content of NAD+ decreases in the fat of people with obesity and other diseases Associated with diabetes mellitus, and also with the extra kilos that are acquired due to age.
About, Karen A. Mendezthe first signatory of the work, indicates that “the decrease in the NAD+ content has serious consequences for the energy metabolism of these cells, which ends up manifesting itself with an excessive accumulation of fat.”
In fact, according to the study, introducing nicotinamide into mice was able to increase the levels of NAD+ in fat.
Francisco Blanco Vaca, co-director of the studyindicates that “There is currently no effective long-term medical treatment for many patients with obesity”.
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“Those based on low-calorie diets in combination with an increase in physical activity through physical exercise, even though they are highly advisable, usually achieve limited weight reduction, which is not always permanent.”
A new way to discover new nutritional solutions
As detected in this study, the mechanism of action of nicotinamide is based on a increase in energy expenditure in the treated mice, not in a decrease in food intake.
This finding opens up a wide range of opportunities to search for nutritional solutions that work for the maintenance of long-term health.
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The research is based on the idea that obesity is a disease of adipose tissue and nicotinamide would preferentially act on this tissue as a “fat burn” inducing the formation of brown adipose tissue, which helps to “burn more calories” and produce body heat from fat.
The latter was confirmed by an increase in the abundance of a protein, the CPU1which dissipates in the form of heat the metabolic energy obtained from ingestion and that would otherwise accumulate in the form of fat.
As Josep Julve explains:
«UCP1 is a protein that is predominantly expressed in brown adipose tissue, whose mission is to regulate body temperature through heat generation. The administration of nicotinamide not only caused a decrease in another adipose tissue, the white one, but also resulted in the presence of groups of smaller adipose cells, whose appearance resembled that of brown fat, which made us suspect that the expression of this protein could be increased in white adipose tissue of mice treated with nicotinamide.”
Prevents the development of fatty liver
Intervention with nicotinamide in mice also prevented diet-induced seizures, another of the adverse effects frequently associated with obesity.
Therefore, researchers believe that supplementation with nicotinamide could, at least in part, compensate for the decreased natural ability of liver cells to utilize other forms of NAD+ during long periods of metabolic stress, such as feeding a high-fat diet.
Lastly, it should be noted that in addition to the benefits shown by this vitamin form, there were no no adverse effectwhich allows us to be optimistic about its study in humans.
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«Previous experience with therapies that increase NAD+ today is still limited, so it is essential to carry out clinical trials to test whether these beneficial effects also occur in patients who have already developed obesity,” concludes the researcher.
This work has recently been published on the cover of the prestigious Molecular magazine and has been directed by Josep Julve, from the CIBERDEM group led by Francisco Blanco Vaca, and has had the collaboration of other CIBERDEM groups and the CIBER Obesity and Nutrition (CIBEROBN ) and the CIBER of Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN).