Score another point for resveratrol, the red wine compound that has captured headlines for its potential life-extending benefits. The molecule, which extends lifespan in worms and flies and has other health benefits in rodents, may also help weight loss. New research shows it decreases food intake and boosts metabolism in lemurs, small primates endemic to Madagascar.

According to a press release from the open access journal BMC Physiology, where the work was published,

Fabienne Aujard, from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France, worked with a team of researchers to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation with resveratrol on the weight, metabolism and energy intake of six mouse lemurs. She said, "The physiological benefits of resveratrol are currently under intensive investigation, with recent work suggesting that it could be a good candidate for the development of obesity therapies. We've found that lemurs eating a diet supplemented with the compound decreased their energy intake by 13% and increased their resting metabolic rate by 29%".

The researchers demonstrated that a four-week resveratrol supplementation was associated with a decrease in food intake and a reduction in seasonal body-mass gain. The response to resveratrol supplementation also involved significant changes in the animals' body temperatures. According to Dr Aujard, "These results provide novel information on the potential effects of resveratrol on energy metabolism and control of body mass in a primate".

Previous research has shown that resveratrol can combat the ill-effects of obesity in rodents fed a high-fat diet. But the doses used in both rodent and the lemur studies are too high to be replicated in humans; the equivalent dose for an average person would be about 14 grams per day. Sirtris, a Massachusetts company owned by GlaxoSmithKline, is developing compounds thought to mimic the molecular effects of the resveratrol more potently. One compound is currently in clinical trials for type 2 diabetes. (For more on Sirtris, see The Argument over Aging in TR's July 2010 issue.)

Want to drop a few pounds on your next vacation? Head for the mountains, the taller the better.

Researchers from Germany studied 20 obese men both at low altitude in Munich and while spending a week at 8700 feet, in a field station near the peak of Germany's highest mountain, Zugspitze. Participants lost an average of two pounds that week and kept it off for the next month, without making any changes in diet or activity levels. During their high altitude stay, the men were given unrestricted access to food and restricted to short walks.

The researchers found that basal metabolism increased at high altitude, though it's not clear why. Levels of leptin, a hormone known to suppress hunger, also increased, perhaps in response to decreased oxygen. Participants ate less, even after symptoms of altitude sickness had disappeared. And they continued to eat less after returning to Munich, at least during the four week follow-up period of the study. The research was published this month in the journal Obesity.

This is a microscope image of brown fat (e-BAT, or engineered Brown Adipose Tissue) created by adding a key control switch to skin cells of mice. Presence of green-stained objects (droplets of oil stored in the cell) confirms the skin cells have been converted to brown fat-producing cells. Blue objects are cell nuclei. Credit: Shingo Kajimura, Ph.D., Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Researchers have developed a recipe for making brown fat, an energy-burning type of fat found mostly in infants and hibernating animals, and discovered that when injected into mice, it caused the cells to develop into brown fat tissue that burned excess energy. However, it's not yet clear whether the fat transplant can prevent these animals from gaining weight when on a high-calorie diet. The research was reported online today in the journal Nature.

White fat--the culprit behind beer bellies and dimpled thighs--stores excess energy from a person's diet. High levels of white fat, especially around the abdomen, can increase the risk for heart disease and diabetes. The primary role of brown fat, in contrast, is to generate heat, protecting newborns from the cold, for example. Scientists previously thought that only young animals had significant amounts of this tissue, but recent research using positron-emission tomography has shown that adults have a surprising amount of brown fat around the neck and chest. Because these cells burn calories, scientists have been searching for ways to turn up their activity as a potential treatment for obesity.

In the recent study, Bruce Spiegelman and colleagues at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute identified two proteins that work together to trigger development of brown fat. When researchers engineered genes for these two proteins into both mouse and human skin cells, the cells developed into brown fat.

According to a press release from Dana Farber:

The scientists then transplanted these synthetic brown fat precursors, known as eBAT (engineered [brown adipose tissue]), into adult mice to augment their innate stores of brown fat. Tests showed that the brown fat transplants were burning caloric energy at a high rate -- energy that otherwise would have been stored as fat in white adipose tissue.

"Since brown fat cells have very high capacity to dissipate excess energy and counteract obesity, eBAT has a very high potential for treating obesity," said Shingo Kajimura, PhD, lead author of the paper. "We are currently working on this."

... The experiments did not test whether the extra brown fat actually protected the mice from becoming obese.