Liquid salt can reduce fat absorption and weight in rats
A new, orally administered liquid reduces weight in rats fed high-fat diets without causing side effects, pointing to a possible therapy for obesity, according to a new study from Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School for Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) Although the FDA has approved several drugs that reduce weight by about 10 percent over the last few decades, those drugs have come with significant side effects, including headaches, diarrhea, severe liver injury, birth defects, sleep apnea, pancreatitis, and suicidal thoughts. The orally administered liquid salt created by the Wyss Institute and SEAS, called choline and geranate, or CAGE, can physically limit the absorption of fats from food with no discernable side effects in rats, and reduce total body weight by about 12 percent. The research is reported in PNAS. “A reduction in body weight of 12 percent is like getting a human from 200 pounds...