article_snippet: The hormone, dubbed MOTS-c, has been proven to work in mice and clinical trials on humans could begin in three years.
article_snippet: The hormone, dubbed MOTS-c, has been proven to work in mice and clinical trials on humans could begin in three years .
article_snippet: The discovery of MOTS-c - a molecule that acts as a signal for the body - was made by scientists at the University of Southern California.
article_snippet: MOTS-c works by increasing insulin sensitivity, allowing the body to more effectively process glucose sugars, researchers claim.
article_snippet: MOTS-c works by increasing insulin sensitivity, allowing the body to more effectively process glucose sugars, researchers claim.
article_snippet: To test the effects of MOTS-c, the team injected a hormone that moves the sugars from food into the blood stream into mice fed a high-fat diet, which typically causes mice to grow obese and develop a resistance to insulin.
article_snippet: This discovery sheds new light on mitochondria and positions mitochondria as active regulators of metabolism,' said Changhan Lee, assistant professor at USC Davis and lead author of the study.
article_snippet: MOTS-c is unique among hormones in that MOTS-c is encoded in the DNA of mitochondria - the 'powerhouses' of cells that convert food into energy.
article_snippet: Other hormones are encoded in DNA in the nucleus.
article_snippet: While all of the experiments on MOTS-c to date have been performed on lab mice, the molecular mechanisms that make it work in mice exist in all mammals, including humans.
article_snippet: The MOTS-c intellectual property has been licensed to a biotechnology company, and clinical trials in humans could begin within the next three years, researchers said.
highlights_snippet: The MOTS-c hormone has so far been proven to work in mice .
  