Can Obesity Be Controlled?

Abstract

Antibodies to fat cell membranes have major effects on fat depots and body composition. In rats the use of such antibodies has resulted in a 30% reduction in body fat content. The success of this novel approach has major implications for the meat industry and may lead to a new approach to the control of human obesity.

The Media and slimming

“…Table 3 shows one example of how the primary scientific information can get distorted. The example is taken from the work of David Flint and his colleagues (Flint et al 1986) who raised antibodies to adipocyte plasma membranes and showed that their injection into rats could cause a gross abnormality of adipose tissue depots after 4 d. When further studies showed that antiserum treatment could reduce the total body fat of rats within 2 months, the scientist himself was prepared to make some extrapolations about the potential implications in terms of the treatment of human obesity in a review (Flint et al 1987), but his extrapolations were accompanied by the usual caution and caveats typical of the scientific mind. This was fortunate because further studies showed that by 6 months the rats had similar amounts of total body fat because some sites had compensated for those which had atrophied and that the injected rats weighed more than control rats because of an increase in lean body mass (Futter & Flint, 1990).…”