Re: Al's Post Regarding Weight Gain And Breast Cancer

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THIS ANGIOTENSIN II inhibitor also has an effect on PPAR--comments?:

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Telmisartan Curbs Weight Gain in Rats


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By David Douglas

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) May 23 - The angiotensin II receptor blocker telmisartan increases caloric expenditure and protects against weight gain in rats fed a high-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, researchers report in the May issue of Hypertension.

"Our findings," senior investigator Dr. Theodore W. Kurtz told Reuters Health, "are consistent with the results of a preliminary clinical study from Japan in which telmisartan also reduced visceral fat accumulation and improved glucose tolerance in patients with the metabolic syndrome."

"This raises the possibility," he added, "that some antihypertensive drugs may be useful not only for treating high blood pressure, but also for treating the metabolic disturbances that often go hand in hand with hypertension."

Specifically, Dr. Kurtz of the University of California, San Francisco and colleagues found that rats given telmisartan, but not those fed valsartan, which lacks the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma partial agonist activity of telmisartan, had lower absolute food intake.

Telmisartan also increased expression of genes known to play important roles in mitochondrial energy metabolism, as well as reducing the accumulation of visceral fat and decreasing adipocyte accumulation to a much greater extent than valsartan.

Dr. Arya M. Sharma, author of an accompanying editorial, told Reuters Health that the work "clearly opens a new perspective on the metabolic effects of telmisartan in humans."

Dr. Sharma of McMaster University, East Hamilton, Ontario went on to observe that "the potential role of this compound in weight maintenance or even the prevention of weight regain may deserve further evaluation."

Hypertension 2006;47:1003-1009.