title: Translational and therapeutic potential of oxytocin as an anti-obesity strategy: Insights from rodents, nonhuman primates and humans.
abstract: The fact that more than 78 million adults in the US are considered overweight or obese highlights the need to develop new, effective strategies to treat obesity and its associated complications, including type 2 diabetes, kidney disease and cardiovascular disease. While the neurohypophyseal peptide oxytocin (OT) is well recognized for its peripheral effects to stimulate uterine contraction during parturition and milk ejection during lactation, release of OT within the brain is implicated in prosocial behaviors and in the regulation of energy balance. Previous findings indicate that chronic administration of OT decreases food intake and weight gain or elicits weight loss in diet-induced obese (DIO) mice and rats. Furthermore, chronic systemic treatment with OT largely reproduces the effects of central administration to reduce weight gain in DIO and genetically obese rodents at doses that do not appear to result in tolerance. These findings have now been recently extended to more translational models of obesity showing that chronic subcutaneous or intranasal OT treatment is sufficient to elicit body weight loss in DIO nonhuman primates and pre-diabetic obese humans. This review assesses the potential use of OT as a therapeutic strategy for treatment of obesity in rodents, nonhuman primates, and humans, and identifies potential mechanisms that mediate this effect.
authors.affiliation: VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Office of Research and Development, Medical Research Service, Department of Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, WA 98108, USA; Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA. Electronic address: jeblevin@u.washington.edu.
authors.forename: James E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Blevins
authors.affiliation: VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Office of Research and Development, Medical Research Service, Department of Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, WA 98108, USA; Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Denis G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Baskin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019440:Anti-Obesity Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D006801:Humans; D009765:Obesity / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000503:physiopathology; D010121:Oxytocin / Q000494:pharmacology*; D011323:Primates; D012377:Rodentia; D057170:Translational Research, Biomedical / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D019440:Anti-Obesity Agents; D010121:Oxytocin
keywords: Energy expenditure; Food intake; Obesity; Oxytocin