Many of you have probably heard the news this week:
High-fat diet may damage the brainEating a high-fat diet may rapidly injure brain cellsHigh fat diet injures the brainBrain injury from high-fat foodsYour brain cells are exploding with every bite of butter! Just kidding. The study in question is titled "Obesity is Associated with Hypothalamic Injury in Rodents and Humans", by Dr. Josh Thaler and colleagues, with my mentor Dr. Mike Schwartz as senior author (
1). We collaborated with the labs of Drs. Tamas Horvath and Matthias Tschop. I'm fourth author on the paper, so let me explain what we found and why it's important.
The QuestionsAmong the many questions that interest obesity researchers, two stand out:
- What causes obesity?
- Once obesity is established, why is it so difficult to treat?
Our study expands on the efforts of many other labs to answer the first question, and takes a stab at the second one as well. Dr. Licio Velloso and collaborators were the first to show in 2005 that inflammation in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus contributes to the development of obesity in rodents (
2), and this has been independently confirmed several times since then. The hypothalamus is an important brain region for the regulation of body fatness, and inflammation keeps it from doing its job correctly.
The Findings Read more »
![High-Fat Diets, Obesity and Brain Damage]()
Terampuh.com
Published:
2012-01-02T09:44:00-08:00
Title:High-Fat Diets, Obesity and Brain Damage
Rating:
5 On
1234 reviews