These Spaniards have discovered a protein that could be key to curbing obesity.

Research from the University of Barcelona (UB) has identified for the first time a molecule that represses the activity of adipose tissue, which could help design strategies to control and treat obesity and cardiometabolic diseases .

Published in the journal Molecular Metabolism , it opens new avenues for understanding how and why tissue inactivation occurs , and for determining whether this repressive function can be reversed, the UB reported in a statement on Monday.

Francesc Villarroya, a member of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biomedicine at the Faculty of Biology at the UB, has pointed out that although until now the activity had focused on identifying which are the activating factors of its function in the organism, but not its factors with repressor function .

Research has found the ACBP protein to block brown fat activity , which is also implicated in aging and the pathological blockage of adipose tissue that promotes obesity.

The ACBP's control activity has biomedical implications in the fight against diseases such as cancer , for which the repressor factor could become a "therapeutic tool of interest."