lol.. loved the back story in the beginning!
Do we know how BAIBA attenuates fat storage? Also does it have any effects on lipolysis or oxidation?
Sorry, too lazy/busy to read references
Well now, that's a good question - and it kind of depends on who you ask. Forgive the narrative answer, but I can't think of a better example of how the prevailing winds of scientific thinking affect understanding of a molecule's mechanism(s) of action.
In the first instance, as was described in the 'cartoons' at the start of the thread, BAIBA's potential for influencing weight loss/gain was first discovered as it's a metabolic byproduct of some thymine-based antiretroviral drugs that seemed to increase wasting of HIV/AIDS patients.
Those researchers looked at it through the prevailing weight-management 'lens' of the time, which was leptin. First they found that BAIBA reduced fat gain in Swiss mice - that do not present leptin insufficiency - when fed a regular chow (as well as increasing plasma ketone bodies and stimulating FAO in liver mitochondria). (PMID:15535418)
Then they found that BAIBA was most effective in leptin-deficient (but not knockout) mice, but also "lowered body adiposity by 27% in +/+ (wild-type, i.e. normal) mice fed the same high calorie diet". They point out that BAIBA "can limit body adiposity in the context of adequate leptin expression", that "the beneficial effects of BAIBA on liver could be, at least in part, mediated by increased leptin signalling", and that "some data suggest that BAIBA may have some beneficial effects unrelated to leptin".
Fast forward to 2014 and the Cell article
b-Aminoisobutyric Acid Induces Browning of White Fat and Hepatic b-Oxidation and Is Inversely Correlated with Cardiometabolic Risk Factors (PMID: 24411942)and it's explained that BAIBA, as well as being a catabolite of thymine, is a signalling molecule released from muscles by PGC1a-induced (i.e. exercise-induced) breakdown of amino acids (specifically valine). In this study it's observed that:
- BAIBA stimulates the differentiation of white fat cells into thermogenic beige/brite fat cells in both in vivo animal experiments and in vitro human stem cell studies.
- BAIBA is inversely correlated with cardiometabolic risk factors in humans.
- BAIBA increases hepatic b-oxidation in vitro.
And that the effects on adipose tissue are PPARa-mediated.
It's also a partial agonist of the glycine receptor - and just last year the situation became even more confused when BAIBA was identified as an AMPK activator. (PMID: 26105792)
If you decide you do want to do some reading on the subject, there are some good lay articles:
Invalid Link Removed
Invalid Link Removed
Invalid Link Removed
and some free-to-access journal articles:
Invalid Link Removed (free pdf)
Invalid Link Removed (free pdf)
In the interests of completeness, a critical but flawed appraisal from suppversity:
Invalid Link Removed
In the past couple of weeks ergogenics.org (the original, Dutch version of ergo-log) has written a couple of good articles about BAIBA too:
Invalid Link Removed
Invalid Link Removed
(Unless you speak Dutch you'll need to run them through a translator.)