Grant: Operating Grant

Obesity and obesity-associated diabetes are projected to overshadow all other health problems in the coming decades. Obesity is a metabolic condition wherein excess calories are converted into fat and stored in the abdomen and other parts of the body. Theoretically, regulating calorie intake by eating quality foods and increasing physical activity will help to tackle obesity. However, implementing this seemingly simple solution is deterred by lifestyle and socioeconomic factors. Moreover, while motivation and life style changes are effective in treating moderately obese individuals, their use is limited in extremely obese patients with diabetes and other complications, who need medical treatment. The inflammation induced by the excess fat is a major culprit in the development of obesity related diabetes. Recent advances have suggested that burning the fat by generation of heat by the body can be a useful mechanism to fight diabetes and obesity. However, our knowledge on how inflammation regulates the generation of heat is minimal. We have identified interleukin-15 (for short IL-15) as one of these inflammatory factors. We have used mice lacking IL-15 as a model system to study the role of IL-15 in obesity. Our findings show that these mice fed with high fat diet do not become obese, whereas normal mice rapidly gain weight. We have observed that these mice have increased capacity to burn fat by generating heat. We propose to study how IL-15 enables weight gain in these mice and obese human patients. This knowledge could help in developing new strategies to treat obese patients.