Fat Hormones and Energy Balance the Subject of Lecture by US Professor

BY: .

“Fat Hormones and Energy Balance” was the title of a public lecture given at UKZN by a visiting academic, Professor William Wong of the Johns Hopkins University’s Department of Physiology School of Medicine in the United States.

The presentation focused on how circulating hormones in the blood control different aspects of sugar and fat metabolism, which in turn have an impact on body weight.

Wong said his presentation examined how organs and tissues in the body co-ordinated the complex metabolic networks and circuitry to maintain proper energy balance, failure of which resulted in metabolic disorders such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.

‘We specifically focus on elucidating the role of a novel family of fat-derived hormones (CTRPs) in controlling sugar and fat metabolism. The function of one such hormone (CTRP9) was presented in greater details to illustrate complex tissue crosstalk underlying the integrated control of energy metabolism.’

Wong’s study, using genetically engineered mouse models, showed that a hormone produced and secreted by fat tissue promoted fat oxidation in the muscle and reduced food intake.

‘As a consequence, the animals are much leaner and resist weight gain in response to a diet rich in fat,’ said Wong.

‘Much remains to be discovered about how energy balance is regulated. Our basic research on secreted hormones produced by fat helps provide insights into the causal link between obesity and its tightly associated cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes,’ said Wong.

He conducted his research at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine with the assistance of two postdoctoral fellows, Dr Jonathan Peterson and Dr Xia Lei and a graduate student Mr Zeke Wei.

‘My research focuses on understanding the fundamental aspects of energy metabolism using genetically engineered animal models. As such, I would leave the recommendations to clinicians and dietitians,’ Wong said.

He hopes that the basic knowledge generated by his work will provide new avenues and catalyse innovative strategies to combat obesity and its associated cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

‘We are currently trying to further dissect the mechanisms by which CTRP family of hormones control sugar and fat metabolism. In parallel, we also attempt to discover the receptor(s) that mediates the biological activity of CTRP family of hormones,’ said Wong.

He received his PhD degree from Harvard University, working on innate immunity, followed by post-doctoral training at the Whitehead Institute at M.I.T. in 2008.

Wong’s research efforts in the past decade focuses on understanding the physiological functions and mechanisms of action of a novel family of secreted hormones they originally identified in 2004.

Nombuso Dlamini