The real reason why losing weight is so hard

The weight battle

The struggle to lose weight is real! Research has found that that the fatter we are, the more our body appears to produce a protein that inhibits our ability to burn fat.

How could this be?

Most of the fat cells in the body act to store excess energy and release it when needed. Some types of fat cells, known as brown adipocytes, function primarily for a process known as thermogenesis, which generates heat to keep us warm.

An international team of researchers have shown that a protein found in the body, known as sLR11, acts to suppress this process.

It’s in the genes

The metabolic rate of both mice and humans increases slightly when changing from a lower calorie diet to a higher calorie diet. However, mice lacking the gene for the production of the sLR11 protein responded with a much greater increase, meaning that they were able to burn calories faster.

In these mice, genes normally associated with brown adipose tissue were more active in white adipose tissue (which normally stores fat for energy release). This means the mice were indeed more thermogenic and had increased energy expenditure.

The researchers found that sLR11 binds to specific receptors on fat cells - in the same way that a key fits into a lock - to inhibit their ability to activate thermogenesis. In effect, sLR11 acts as a signal to increase the efficiency of fat to store energy and prevents excessive energy loss.

When the researchers examined levels of sLR11 in humans, they found that the greater the levels of the protein, the higher the total fat mass.

"Our discovery may help explain why overweight individuals find it incredibly hard to lose weight. Their stored fat is actively fighting against their efforts to burn it off at the molecular level,” said Dr Andrew Whittle, joint first author.

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