Some of the most important discoveries in the world of science were discovered by mistake. For example, penicillin was the first antibiotic and has saved countless lives. It was discovered by mistake and proved that science can be very unexpected at times.
Innovations like this are still happening.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania were working on finding a treatment that might cure diabetes, and then realized that they may have accidentally developed an innovative, even revolutionary treatment for weight loss.
The researchers published a recent article in the journal Science describing their experiment on laboratory mice which were injected with Type II diabetes, which included a therapeutic method that was supposed to reverse the effects of metabolic disease.
But, the experiment didn’t go as the researchers expected. Following the experimental treatment, the mice began to secrete a slippery fluid from their skin.
"They sparkled in the light. The mice which were treated shone brightly all the time and I didn’t know what that meant. These mice lost a lot of weight and were slippery all the time," said Prof. Taku Kambayashi, the senior researcher who led this study.
The shiny, oily substance covered the entire bodies of the mice, and when the researchers took and analyzed samples, they discovered that it was fat. This means that the experimental treatment caused the mice to excrete fat out of their bodies directly through the skin.
The treatment that the researchers tested in the study is called TSLP (thymic stromal lymphopoietin).
It’s a cytokine (a protein which controls immune cell activity) that’s been proven to activate immune cells that control inflammation.
Inflammatory regulation plays a critical role in preventing Type II diabetes and obesity. The researchers thought that if they could get TSLP to hitchhike a virus and infiltrate the body, it might trigger an immune response that would counteract the effects of Type II diabetes.
To do this, the researchers coated the protein on a vector of adenovirus, which has already proven to be successful in various experimental treatments. After the treatment was injected into the bodies of the mice it caused them to shed their weight quickly by secreting excess skin fat (sebum) in higher amounts than usual. In fact, the researchers found that the substance secreted from the mice's skin was white adipose tissue (a common type of fat).
During the research, the mice lost about half the amount of white fat in their bodies, including abdominal fat, a stubborn and challenging type of fat that tends to accumulate around vital organs that studies show has a strong link to increased mortality risk.The significance of this accidental discovery may be fateful, like winning a lottery. Science and medicine are desperately looking for effective, reliable weight loss methods, due to the steady rise in obesity rates and related morbidity around the world.Along with its anti-obesity benefits, TSLP treatment may also help with skin problems, such as eczema. Yet, at this stage all that can be learned from this study is that there is a therapeutic channel for which it’s worthwhile and justified to expand investigating, with the help of comprehensive studies that will systematically and thoroughly examine its effectiveness and safety - especially in humans. The goals that the researchers set for themselves: to identify the mechanism that causes the body to secrete sebum and to try to translate this into an effective and safe treatment method for humans.