The results have been picked up by many media outlets and reported as potentially good news for so-called low-carbohydrate diets, like the once fashionable Atkins diet.
Low carb diets have lost popularity amongst the public with critics saying that the approach puts followers at a higher risk of clogged arteries and heart attack in the long-term.
However, the lead researcher behind the new study, Rachel Batterham from University College London, told NutraIngredients.com that low-carb does not necessarily mean high protein.
"The Atkins diet is primarily a low-carb diet and it doesn't state how much protein should be consumed. As a result of reducing carbs then this tends to be a increased fat and increased protein diet," she said.
"I am not advocating the Atkins diet," she said.
What Dr. Batterham is advocating is that a hormone in the gut, peptide YY (PYY), increases on consumption of a high protein diet in normal and obese human subjects and produces a feeling of fullness (satiety).
To test this directly, the researchers generated two types of mice; one was engineered to be incapable of producing PYY (PYY null mice), while the other mice were normal.
After feeding the mice on regular chow, the researchers found that the PYY null mice were 37 per cent heavier than their normal counterparts, and this was equivalent to a 237 per cent increase in total body fat.
The obese, PYY null mice were then given daily PYY injections and after 15 days it was found that they had lost about 20 per cent of their body weight. Within one week of stopping the daily injections (removing the PYY hormone) the mice had regained 60 per cent of the lost body weight.
In an additional experiment, the scientists divided the normal PYY mice into four diet groups to eat a high-fat normal protein (HFNP), high-fat high protein (HFHP), low-fat normal protein (LFNP), low-fat high protein (LFHP).
The results, published in the September issue of the journal Cell Metabolism (Vol. 4, pp. 223-233), shows both high-protein diets caused greater PYY release than the normal protein diets.
Over 16 weeks, both high-protein diets reduced weight gain and enhanced PYY synthesis in the mice.
"These findings provide compelling evidence that PYY is a physiologically relevant regulator of food intake and body weight," wrote the researchers.
The reason why protein is the most satiating of the macronutrients could be due to evolution, said the researchers, since the hunter-gatherer diets contained much more protein than most modern meals.
The research is unlikely to lead to supplements containing PYY as a weight-loss product however, said Dr. Batterham.
"PYY is a protein so if it is taken in tablet form it is broken down and doesn't pass into the blood. Thus to increase PYY it either has to be given by another route (intravenous, subcutaneous, transdermal, nasally) or we can try and increase the body's own circulating levels by modulation diet," she said.
By showing that increasing PYY levels in PYY null mice led to weight and fat loss, and subsequent gain on removal of PYY indicates that the diet would have to be long-term rather than merely for several weeks or months in order to gain the full benefits of the high protein diet
More research is needed to confirm and further explore the implications of this preliminary study, and Batterham told NutraIngredients.com that human studies was the next step.
"One of the next steps is to undertake long term studies in obese patients both with and without type 2 diabetes to try and establish what is the optimum amount of protein that helps with weight loss but which doesn't have any adverse effects," she said.
Over 300m adults are obese worldwide, according to latest statistics from the WHO and the International Obesity Task Force. About one-quarter of the US adult population is said to be obese, with rates in Western Europe on the rise although not yet at similar levels.