A hormone that mimics the effects of exercise could turn out to be a key tool in the fight against obesity.

Diet-free weight management could in the pipelines, for the hormone dubbed "MOTS-c" appears to let your body tolerate a high fat diet without gaining weight.

It works by targeting muscle tissue, restoring insulin sensitivity and neutralizing insulin resistance that comes with age and as a result of diet, and could become important in preventing diabetes.

"This represents a major advance in the identification of new treatments for age-related diseases such as diabetes," says senior author Pinchas Cohen, dean of the University of Southern California Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

Supplementation with the hormone, which has yet to be tested on humans, kept laboratory mice trim and healthy on a diet that would make them obese under normal circumstances, according to the study.

"This discovery sheds new light on mitochondria and positions them as active regulators of metabolism," says lead author Changhan Lee, assistant professor at USC Davis.

MOTS-c stands out from other hormones because it's encoded in the DNA of mitochondria, which is the part of each cell that converts food into energy. Most other hormones are encoded in the DNA of the nucleus, according to the study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

Clinical trials in humans could begin within the next three years, says Cohen, for the MOTS-c intellectual property has been licensed to a biotechnology company.

Results are expected to be favorable, for the molecular mechanisms necessary for the hormone to function exist in all mammals, according to the study.

In what seems like a never-ending race for a weight loss product that really works, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological studies have developed a pill that tricks the body into thinking it has consumed a large meal.

The drug, called Fexaramine, which is capable of igniting the fat burning process with no sweat-equity from you, is soon to enter human clinical trials.

Meanwhile, though individuals have been dreaming of an easy weight-loss method for decades, a recent focus has been on individuals' awareness of what they eat, with recent developments in food science leading to new guidelines from US-based watchdog groups and an increased attention on how the food industry processes and markets their products.