New Weight Loss Mechanism Could One Day Trick Your Body Into Thinking You've Exercised

Burning calories isn't the only way that exercise leads to weight loss.

A new study on mice, led by researchers at Stanford University and Baylor College of Medicine, has shown that intense physical activity can also naturally suppress appetite.

Scientists found the bloodstreams of mice subjected to bouts of hard exercise were filled with a metabolite called Lac-Phe . In mouse brains, Lac-Phe is thought to stop a specific neural trigger that leads to feeding.

The discovery hints at an "exciting possibility", says medical researcher Yong Xu at Baylor. Perhaps in the future, novel drugs could tap into this natural neural mechanism for weight management in our own species.

The active ingredient in popular drugs like Ozempic , after all, was originally developed to mimic a nat