A team of researchers announced Sunday that obesity may well be brought on by stress – and it might just be discardable.

Studies of mice have shown that chronic stress coupled with a high-fat diet leads to the release of neuropeptide Y, a hormone that favors the accumulation of abdominal fat, according to researchers from Georgetown University.

Injecting the mice with a substance that blocks neuropeptide Y proved to prevent the accumulation of fat – even if they were under stress and on a high-fat diet. Not only that, the researchers said in the journal Nature Medicine, but fat deposits actually diminished by 40 to 50 percent within two weeks.

“It's very exciting,” lead author Zofia Zukowska of Georgetown University said. “This could be revolutionary.”

Zukowska and her team explored whether stress and a non-healthy diet promote obesity by experimenting on mice. The animals were subjected to chronic stress – standing in cold water one hour each day or in a cage with a more aggressive alpha mouse 10 minutes – and fed high-fat high-sugar products.

Within two weeks, mice subjected to chronic stress and fed non-healthy food had gained a significant amount of weight, particularly in the abdominal area. Mice that had been fed high-fat foods but without experiencing the stress had put on half the weight the first group had.

After three months of stress and a high-fat diet, the mice were obese and suffering of high blood pressure, incipient diabetes and high cholesterol – just like obese humans.

The researchers hope to be able to begin studies on humans in two years.