SUMMARY
Researchers in the Department of Medicine within the Division of Digestive Diseases at UCLA have identified a set of gut bacteria and gut metabolites as a biomarker for food addiction in obese patients.
BACKGROUND
Obesity and its comorbidities pose a serious global health crisis. In 2016, about 2 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Of these over 650 million were obese. This accounts for 39% of adults being overweight, and 13% being obese. These numbers are projected to continue to increase with rates as high as half of Americans being obese by 2030 and as high as 80% by 2050. Studies have shown that 30-50% of those who are overweight or obese have food addiction, Food addiction is the concept of compulsive eating and similar to other addiction disorders food addiction triggers the reward or pleasure centers of the brain. While there are many papers that have shown the relationship of the gut microbiome to obesity, few have shown a possible mechanistic link on how the brain alters the gut microbiome and/or it’s metabolite to alter the progression of obesity, or specifically with food addiction in obesity. The inventors have shown that alterations in the gut microbiome and gut metabolite is associated with food addiction in obesity. In particular, they discovered that a certain set of bacteria are negatively associated with food addiction behavior. Furthermore, they identified a metabolite associated with food addiction and with a region of the brain associated with pleasure.
INNOVATION
Arpana Gupta and Tien Dong at UCLA have identified a set of bacteria as a biomarker for food addiction and have elucidated a metabolite associated with food addiction in obese patients. The potential therapeutics of these findings above include: 1) creating a probiotic with the above set of bacteria as a dietary supplement to treat obesity and food addiction. 2) Using the above set of bacteria as a non-invasive stool biomarker to screen patients for food addiction. 3) Creating a compound of the given metabolite as a therapeutic drug to treat food addiction and obesity.
APPLICATIONS
- Therapeutic Drug target
- Non-invasive diagnostic screening tool to rule out obesity and type 2 Diabetes
- Obesity and Food Addiction Treatment
- Probiotics
- Biomarker screening
ADVANTAGES
- A potential compound used to alter gut microbiome to progress obesity
- Develops a screen to identify patients with food addiction
- First of its kind compound for patients with food addiction
STATE OF DEVELOPMENT
The present invention describes the bacteria and metabolites associated with food addiction and lower risk of type 2 diabetes. The bacteria can currently be used as a probiotic dietary supplement as well as a biomarker to screen patients suffering from food addiction. The inventors are currently generating a compound of the metabolite to use as a therapeutic drug to treat food addiction and obesity.
Related Papers (from the inventors only)
De Mello et al. Indolepropionic acid and novel lipid metabolites are associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes in the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study. Sci Rep. 2017 Apr 11;7:46337. doi: 10.1038/srep46337.