Research

Hormonal

Oleoylethanolamide (OEA) stimulates lipolysis and fatty acid oxidation in adipose tissue and skeletal muscle by activating the nuclear receptor PPAR-α, leading to reduced body weight gain and tissue triacylglycerol content in diet-induced obese rodents.

OEA is an endogenous lipid that activates PPAR-α to increase fat burning (lipolysis and oxidation) and reduce body weight in obese states. While it also reduces appetite, its ability to directly stimulate fat utilization appears crucial for weight loss in obese individuals. This mechanism suggests OEA or PPAR-α agonists could be used to target fat storage directly.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
The results suggest that OEA stimulates fat utilization through activation of PPAR-α and that this effect may contribute to its anti-obesity actions.
Manuel Guzmán et al. · Journal of Biological Chemistry · 2004

Why this rating

Strong mechanistic evidence using wild-type and PPAR-α knockout mice, plus synthetic agonist controls, though limited to rodent models.

Source

Oleoylethanolamide Stimulates Lipolysis by Activating the Nuclear Receptor Peroxisome Proliferator-activated Receptor α (PPAR-α)

Manuel Guzmán et al. · Journal of Biological Chemistry · 2004

DOI 10.1074/jbc.m404087200

mechanism_onlyCited 326×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →