A new discovery reveals that astrocytes, star-shaped cells in the brain, play a key role in regulating fat metabolism and obesity. These cells act on a cluster of neurons, known as the GABRA5 cluster, effectively acting as a “switch” for weight regulation.
The MAO-B enzyme in these astrocytes was identified as a target for obesity treatment, influencing GABA secretion and thus weight regulation.
KDS2010, a selective and reversible MAO-B inhibitor, successfully led to weight loss in obese mice without impacting their food intake, even while consuming a high-fat diet, and is now in Phase 1 clinical trials.
Here’s todays winner for most unintelligible title
Funnily, I understood that. There’s been a theory that our current obesity epidemic is caused by an environmental factor influencing our brains into targeting a higher ideal weight than it otherwise should. This is the ‘switch’ the title is referring to, and they’ve presumably discovered its existence and a way to influence it. Of course, there might be more than one…
The “switch” is most likely highly processed food and added sugar in everything you buy.
There is good reason to think otherwise. You might find this an interesting read:
http://achemicalhunger.com
I do not have time right now to read the whole thing, but what strikes me as odd, is that the author blames everything on contaminants, when a change in lifestyle could also be an option. They write about indigenous people moving to western societies and becoming fat, blaming it on industrial food contaminants, but ignore, that western people do not exercise enough. At least mention it and give a reason why you think, that this does not factor into it.
Then they also generalize about people in the western world getting obese at the same rate, which is not true at all. People in the US are more obese than in the Netherlands, for example. Japan has one of the lowest average BMIs in the world. It just doesn’t add up. Furthermore, there is a lot of talking about causation, when they only prove correlation.
All those factors are addressed at some point. Keep reading!
Nah, sorry, I was out, when they stated, that more exercise and eating less does not help (and then using an arbitrary time span of 12 months). If you violate the laws of physics in your analysis, it is definitely wrong.
Calories in calories out is a pretty discredited theory, if that’s what you are referring to. The human body is not a closed system, so laws of physics is about as irrelevant as possible. The body can influence how much energy to absorb and burn, within limits.
Seriously, all the points you’re bringing up were fully addressed at some point in the article. It’s fine if you can’t be bothered to read, but it makes no sense to belittle it in that case.
Yes and with that you have an upper limit of how much energy food can give to your body. If your body does take less than this energy, you will lose weight even faster. It can’t take more energy than is provided by the food. Raise your exercise level above your maximum intake and you will lose weight. It’s thermodynamics.
This is not true. The laws of thermodynamics apply to open systems as well as long as you take into account the energy that enters and leaves the system, which is exactly what calories in, calories out mean. The brain influencing how many calories are spent is just part of calories out. What doesn’t work is equating calories out with imprecise estimates from websites, watches etc, or equating calories in with imprecise calorie counts from food labels that people often miscount anyway. But when calories are carefully measured by scientists (i.e. in a metabolic chamber) and everything is accounted for, it’s calories in, calories out all the way.
I wanted a huge brain and am now thoroughly disappointed 😞