Heffernan et al., 2001 (title withheld on this site; see the publication record)
Heffernan MA, Thorburn AW, Fam B, Summers R, Conway-Campbell B, Waters MJ, Ng FM., International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, 2001;25(10):1442-1449
published
Obese (ob/ob) and lean C57BL/6J mice received human growth hormone, AOD9604 or saline over 14 days by mini-osmotic pump. Body weight, caloric intake, resting energy expenditure, fat oxidation, glucose oxidation, and plasma glucose, insulin and glycerol were measured before and after. Alongside, cells transfected with the human growth-hormone receptor were used to measure receptor binding and cell proliferation.
- Both the hormone and the fragment significantly reduced body-weight gain in the obese mice, which the authors report was associated with increased fat oxidation measured in the living animal and increased plasma glycerol, an index of lipolysis. Unlike the hormone, AOD9604 did not induce hyperglycaemia or reduce insulin secretion. No numeric value for any of these measures is printed in the abstract.
- In cells transfected with the human growth-hormone receptor, AOD9604 did not compete for that receptor and did not induce cell proliferation, unlike the intact hormone.
There is no human study on this page. This project searched PubMed for one and found none: every figure above was recorded in rats, in mice, in cultured cells or in an analytical laboratory. Rodent work at this tier says what happened in those animals under those conditions, and nothing more.
Two of the three rodent publications are, in part, negative ones: the fragment did not bind the growth-hormone receptor or drive cell proliferation, and in knock-out mice its effect on body weight and lipolysis did not survive the loss of the beta-3 adrenergic receptor, which the authors read as evidence that the receptor is not the direct route. No publication recorded here identifies a receptor this peptide does act at.