We did not see this coming.
Scientists in Japan have found that a new drink could help with weight loss. Their research found that drinking the waste water from boiled sweet potatoes helped with weight loss.
According to
The Daily Mail, the idea behind it is that proteins in the starchy waste water suppresses appetite.
For the test they took two groups of mice, and gave one group higher levels of sweet potato peptide, the protein which is found in waste water from the potatoes. After 28 days they weighed the animals and tested their cholesterol and triglyceride levels. They also tested their levels of leptin, which controls hunger.
The group that were given higher levels of sweet potato peptide were found to have significantly lower body weight and had lower cholesterol, triglyceride, leptin and adiponectin levels.
Speaking about the results the lead researcher Dr Koji Ishiguro said:
"We throw out huge volumes of waste water that contains sweet potato proteins. We hypothesised that these could affect body weight, fat tissue and other factors.
Finding alternative uses for the sweet potato proteins in waste water could be good for the environment and industry, and also potentially for health.
We were surprised that SPP reduced the levels of fat molecules in the mice and that it appears to be involved controlling appetite suppression molecules.
These results are very promising, providing new options for using this wastewater instead of discarding it.
We hope SPP is used for the functional food material in future."
