Too lazy or too busy to exercise? No problem!

Recent research suggests that in the future, a drug may be developed and used to prevent obesity by increasing a person's cellular respiration or oxidative metabolism.

The study was conducted in lab mice; researchers knocked out a gene responsible for an enzyme called FIH, which affects the body's physiological response to low oxygen levels.  They discovered that mice without the gene would become obese on what they ate.

Mice without the gene consistently hyperventilated. They behaved as if they lacked oxygen; to adjust, they took in 20 to 40 percent more air than normal.  Additionally, their heart rates were markedly increased, and they drank 30 to 40 percent more than normal mice did.

Along with his colleagues, Randall Johnson, a professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego found these mice stayed thin and healthy.  Even when fed a high fat diet, they managed to avoid fatty livers and diabetes.

A health observer, who was not an actual participant in the study, commented that somehow, the oxidative metabolism of fat and carbohydrates was increased.  Because of this augmentation of fat and carbohydrates, macro nutrients could quickly break down into water and carbon dioxide, thus preventing the mice from becoming obese and/or contracting obesity-related disease, such as diabetes.

The researchers suggest that it may be possible for a drug to be developed that actually suppresses such a gene in order for to possibly increase their metabolism rate even, even though they might be sedentary.

Respiration increases at higher altitudes, where the oxygen level is lower than those at or below sea level.  Oxygen at sea level is 22 percent in the air; it’s about 15 percent at the top of Mount Everest.

Is it possible that low oxygen is a potential preventive against diabetes and obesity?  The diabetes rate is lower in places of high altitude, such as Colorado.  

However, maintaining a low oxygen level may not be the solution, according to the above mentioned health observer. He stated that living in an environment low in oxygen may not necessarily increase calorie burn because that situation alone  does not increase a person’s  overall oxygen intake.

To completely burn certain amounts of macro nutrients, such as fat, carbohydrates and proteins, into CO2 and water requires a certain amount of oxygen.

Jimmy Downs and editing by Rachel Stockton