The path to fat yields endurance

IOWA CITY, Iowa, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say staying lean on a high-fat diet is possible, but at the cost of reduced endurance.

Study senior author Dr. Leonid Zingman of the University of Iowa in Iowa City says mouse studies show the molecular pathway leading to fat deposition -- the ATP-sensitive potassium channel -- is also key to survival and stress adaptation.

Zingman and colleagues found mice genetically altered to bypass this pathway did in fact, develop obesity resistance.

"Indeed, disrupting the channel made the mice burn more calories even while at rest and also made them less fuel efficient when exercising, and therefore less capable of maintaining physical performance," Zingman says in a statement. "Through evolution, living organisms have become energy-saving. They responded to limited food resources and the high energy need to survive by becoming energy efficient.

Zingman, who began this line of research while at the Rochester, Minn., Mayo Clinic laboratory of Dr. Andre Terzic says the challenge will be to interfere with this pathway to manage obesity without negatively affecting heart and muscle function.

The mouse study, published in Cell Metabolism, involves researchers not only from the University of Iowa and the Mayo Clinic, but from the University of Connecticut and New York University School of Medicine.