A human hormone might be a potent treatment for obesity, but only if it is taken orally.
The peptide hormone PYY is made primarily by cells in the gut as a satiety signal to the brain. When it is injected into humans, however, it causes nausea and ruins the taste of food. Sergei Zolotukhin at the University of Florida in Gainesville and his colleagues sprayed PYY into the mouths of mice and found that although the animals stopped eating, as expected, they did not become nauseous.
PYY in saliva seems to use a different signalling pathway from gut PYY to tell the brain when it is time to stop eating. Targeting molecules in this pathway with oral PYY or other compounds could reduce overeating without inducing nausea.
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Satiety signal from the mouth. Nature 503, 440–441 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/503440d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/503440d
