Researchers studying a popular supplement that lines the shelves of health food stores have determined that, in mice at least, it lives up to its claim to lower cholesterol. In addition, the supplement - known guggulsterone - seems to control cholesterol in a different way than existing drugs, lending hope for a potential new class of cholesterol-lowering drugs
For over 00 years, people. gugglesterone are extracted from the resin of the guggul tree in India. Locals eat to treat a wide variety of ailments, from arthritis to obesity; in recent years, it was sold to the West as a natural cholesterol-lowering agent. David Moore, a molecular biologist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who is a fan of guggulsterone and growth of small trees guggul in his backyard, wanted to determine accurately extract lowers cholesterol.
Moore and his colleagues suspected that the mechanism could be dependent on a receptor called FXR, found in the nucleus of cells. When active, FXR limit the amount of cholesterol the body converts to bile acid, which is then excreted by the body. Indeed, Moore's team found that cells treated with guggulsterone inhibited FXR, which implies that the compound helps turn cholesterol into bile acids. The researchers then focused on two groups of mice: one that is normal and that lacked a functional receptor FXR. After being fed a high cholesterol diet for a week, some animals received guggulsterone. In normal mice, cholesterol levels in the liver declined nearly normal; the guggulsterone has no impact on animals without FXR.
Unlike current cholesterol medications, which block cholesterol production in the liver, Guggulsterone acts through a different mechanism, perhaps accelerate the production of bile acids from cholesterol, or make entirely something else. Other researchers are cautiously optimistic, but say much more work needs to be done. "You are very lucky if it is simple," said Ronald Evans, a molecular biologist at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.
Related Sites
page Home of David Moore
0 Komentar