A research team from the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong has developed a new delivery system for thyroid hormone (TH) using nanoparticles modified with an adipose-homing peptide.
This system selectively transports TH to adipose tissues, which could advance the treatment of obesity-related medical complications and reduce the adverse effects caused by systemic administration of TH. The study results have been published in Nature Communications.
While TH has therapeutic potential for treating obesity by targeting thermogenesis to promote energy expenditure, clinical trials have failed to demonstrate obvious clinical benefits from the chronic systemic administration of TH on weight loss in obese individuals. Additionally, widespread expression of TH receptors often leads to serious deleterious effects on multiple organs, such as tachycardia, heart attack, muscle wasting, and osteoporosis….