Will diets become obsolete? Researchers at the University of East Anglia have made a neuroscience discovery that they believe could have a major impact on the problem of obesity. Scientists investigating the hypothalamus section of the brain—that part which regulates sleep and wake cycles, energy expenditure, appetite, thirst, hormone release and many other critical biological functions—looked specifically at the nerve cells that regulate appetite.
They found that a population of brain cells called ‘tanycytes’ behave like stem cells and add new neurons to the appetite-regulating circuitry of the mouse brain after birth and into adulthood. This was surprising as it was previously thought that the nerve cells in the brain associated with appetite regulation were generated entirely during an embryo’s development in the womb and therefore their numbers were fixed for life.
Medical News Today quotes lead researcher Mohammad K. Hajihosseini, from the Universities’ School of Biological Sciences, saying, “Unlike dieting, translation of this discovery could eventually offer a permanent solution for tackling obesity. Loss or malfunctioning of neurons in the hypothalamus is the prime cause of eating disorders such as obesity. This study has shown that the neural circuitry that controls appetite is not fixed in number and could possibly be manipulated numerically to tackle eating disorders.”
Obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally. More than 1.4 billion adults worldwide are overweight and more than half a billion are obese, according to Medical News Today. Associated health problems include type 2 diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and cancer. At least 2.8 million people die each year as a result of being overweight or obese. The economic burden of obesity in the U.S. tops $60 billion.
The researchers define their next step as the defining of the group of genes and cellular processes that regulate the behavior and activity of tanycytes. Hajihosseini said that this research has “furthered our understanding of brain stem cells.” His long term goal is to translate the work to humans. He believes that it could lead to a permanent intervention for those predisposed to obesity, or treatment later in life as the disease becomes apparent.
