Artesunate treats obesity in male mice and non-human primates through GDF15/GFRAL signalling axis.

ABSTRACT: Obesity, a global health challenge, is a major risk factor for multiple life-threatening diseases, including diabetes, fatty liver, and cancer. There is an ongoing need to identify safe and tolerable therapeutics for obesity management. Herein, we show that treatment with artesunate, an artemisinin derivative approved by the FDA for the treatment of severe malaria, effectively reduces body weight and improves metabolic profiles in preclinical models of obesity, including male mice with overnutrition-induced obesity and male cynomolgus macaques with spontaneous obesity, without inducing nausea and malaise. Artesunate promotes weight loss and reduces food intake in obese mice and cynomolgus macaques by increasing circulating levels of Growth Differentiation Factor 15 (GDF15), an appetite-reg

SUBMITTER: Guo X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10838268 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature