Regulating Appetite by Targeting Nutrient Delivery in the Gut

在过去的50年里，由于在久坐不动的环境中容易获得能量密集的食物，肥胖的患病率迅速而强劲地上升。以身体的食欲调节系统为目标来控制卡路里的摄入是一种新颖的、对消费者友好的体重管理方法。一种很有前景的方法是将特定的营养物质输送到胃肠道的特定部位，在那里它们触发营养感应回路，进而向大脑发出减少食物摄入的信号。我们已经证明，这个肠脑轴可以被操纵来减少随后的食物摄入。该项目旨在展示“从分子到产品”的能力，并从这项工作和先前的工作中研究健康声明的潜在市场。在目前的BBSRC研究中产生的证据将支持一项健康声明，并且市场上具有科学证明效果的令人满意的产品的潜力代表了一个重要的商业机会，我们希望通过后续资金来开发。

The prevalence of obesity has risen rapidly and robustly in the past fifty years due to the easy availability of energy dense foods in a sedentary environment. Targeting the body's appetite-regulating systems to control calorie intake is a novel and consumer friendly approach to weight management. A promising approach is to deliver specific nutrients to the specific site in the gastrointestinal tract where they trigger nutrient sensing circuits which in turn signal to the brain to reduce food intake. We have shown that this gut-brain axis can be manipulated to reduce subsequent food intake. This project aims to demonstrate "molecule to product" capability and examine the potential market for health claims from this and prior work. The evidence generated in the current BBSRC study will support a health claim, and the potential to market satiating products with scientifically proven effects represents a significant commercial opportunity which we wish to develop with Follow-on-Funding.