This Is Your Brain Speaking: Stop Overeating

What would you do if it were possible to find the exact circuitry in your brain that caused you to overeat? Now scientists have done just that.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine have pinpointed the precise cellular connections responsible for triggering this behavior, according to newswise.com.

Sixty years ago they were able to electronically stimulate a part of the brain to make mice overeat, but this new study may lead us to insight about a cause for obesity that could lead to treatments for anorexia, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder – the most prevalent eating disorder in the United States. In other words,
help us find more ways to turn off the signal that tells us, when we see fudge cake, "Eat me, eat me!"

The researchers' work "drills down to the precise biological mechanisms that drive binge eating and will lead us away from stigmatizing explanations that invoke blame and a lack of willpower," newswise.com quotes Cynthia Bulik, Distinguished Professor of Eating Disorders at UNC School of Medicine and the Gillings School of Global Public Health.  Bulik was not part of the research team.

Scientists used light on certain synapses (called BNST) in the mice brains, and they began to eat voraciously, even though they had already been well fed. Moreover, the mice showed a strong preference for high-fat foods. “They would essentially eat up to half their daily caloric intake in about 20 minutes,” Garret Stuber, PhD, assistant professor in the department of psychiatry and department of cell biology and physiology and lead author, told newswise.com. “This suggests that this BNST pathway could play a role in food consumption and pathological conditions such as binge eating."

Newswise.com reports that "stimulating the BNST also led the mice to exhibit behaviors associated with reward, suggesting that shining light on BNST cells enhanced the pleasure of eating. On the flip side, shutting down the BNST pathway caused mice to show little interest in eating, even if they had been deprived of food."

Further study might lead to potential targets for drugs to treat certain populations of patients with eating disorders, according to newswise.com.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Don't Wash Your Chicken and Other Food Safety Myths

I remember when I first heard this.  Don't wash your chicken , before you cook it?  I ignored it.  But over time, I began to realize it's true.  Washing it spreads deadly (or at least sick-making) bacteria.  Really. “You should assume that if you have chicken, you have either Salmonella or Campylobacter bacteria on it, if not both,”Dr. Jennifer Quinlan, an associate professor at Drexel University, told newswise.com.  These two bacteria, she noted, are the leading causes of food-borne illness. “If you wash it, you’re more likely to spray bacteria all over the kitchen and yourself," she said. And the rinse water you've been using? It's not hot enough to kill bacteria anyway. Washing raw poultry was a common unsafe practice in all the groups she studied for a documentary on safe cooking conditions, with some minor cultural differences in the method of washing. People are very attached to the idea of washing raw poultry, she told newswise.com. “Some think they’re
Read more

Take Herbal Supplements? Even Green Tea Extract Can Lead to Liver Damage

Take herbal supplements? You might want to listen up. A new study is warning that new information is showing that some supplements may damage the liver, along with over the counter drugs and even those prescribed by physicians, according to newswise.com. The rate of drug-induced liver injury (DILI), a rare adverse drug reaction which is challenging to diagnose -- and which can lead to jaundice, liver failure and even death -- is increasing more and more.  Experts put it down to the overwhelming use of herbal supplements and other drugs in the last 10 years.  “A lot of consumers have a preconceived notion that if it’s a natural product, it must be safe. But that is not necessarily the case,” the Web site quotes Herbert Bonkovsky, MD, FACG, co-author of the guidelines. “Most of these products are not well-regulated and have very little oversight. Traces of heavy metals and prescription drugs have even been found in some herbal and dietary supplements. We encourage patients to
Read more

Need the ER? Pray Your Doc Plays Video Games

We're all so used to picking on our kids for playing video games but the next time he's in the ER, you just might be happy that doctors do it, too. According to new research, video games improve doctors' recognition and triage of severe trauma patients, newswise.com reports. Playing an adventure video game featuring a fictitious, young emergency physician treating severe trauma patients was better than text-based learning at priming real doctors to quickly recognize the patients who needed higher levels of care, according to a new trial led by the  University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine .  The results held, even though doctors assigned to the game enjoyed it less than those assigned to traditional, text-based education. This indicates that if game enjoyment can be improved, the already favorable results might be enhanced, the web site notes.  “Physicians must make decisions quickly and with incomplete information. Each year, 30,000 preventable deaths occur
Read more