Scientists at Monash University's Biomedicine Discovery Institute have found a mechanism by which the brain coordinates feeding with energy expenditure, solving a puzzle that has previously eluded researchers and offering a potential novel target for the treatment of obesity.
[...] Researchers from the Metabolic Disease and Obesity Program have shown in laboratory models that feeding controls the 'browning' of fat, that is, the conversion of white fat, which stores energy, into brown fat, which expends it. Fat in the human body is stored in specialised cells called adipocytes, which can change from white to brown states and back again.
Their study, published in Cell Metabolism today, shows that after a meal the brain responds to circulating insulin, which is increased after a rise in blood glucose. The brain then sends signals to promote the browning of fat to expend energy. By contrast, after a fast, the brain instructs these browned adipocytes to once more convert into white adipocytes, storing energy. These processes help prevent both excess weight gain and excess weight loss in response to feeding and fasting, meaning body weight remains relatively stable over time.
The researchers showed that the brain's ability to sense insulin and coordinate feeding with energy expenditure via browning is controlled by a switch-like mechanism turned on after fasting to inhibit the response to insulin, repressing browning and conserving energy, and turned off after feeding to facilitate the insulin response to promote browning and to expend energy.
"What happens in the context of obesity is that the switch stays on all the time -- it doesn't turn on off during feeding," lead researcher Professor Tony Tiganis said.
"As a consequence, browning is turned off all the time and energy expenditure is decreased all the time, so when you eat, you don't see a commensurate increase in energy expenditure -- and that promotes weight gain," Professor Tiganis said.
Being able to control that switch can control the body's ability to shed weight.
Journal Reference: Garron T. Dodd, et. al., A Hypothalamic Phosphatase Switch Coordinates Energy Expenditure with Feeding. Cell Metabolism, 2017; 26 (2): 375 DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2017.07.013
(Score: 2, Insightful) by driverless on Friday August 04 2017, @02:54AM (16 children)
Here's an even more novel treatment for obesity: Eat less sugar- and fat-laden junk, and get some exercise from time to time. There is no magic pill or potion you can take for this, if you keep stuffing sugar and fat into yourself while doing zero exercise you're going to get obese eventually. You don't need to become an exercise-freak vegetarian, just a moderate amount of applied common sense is enough to keep at a healthy weight and fitness level without affecting your ability to enjoy a good meal.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @03:05AM (7 children)
Isn't there some meme you should be regurgitating? Something about counting calories? Why don't I see the word "calories" anywhere in your comment?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday August 04 2017, @03:12AM
You don't need to go that far.
Also, it's kilojoules. I assume you're in the US?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @03:18AM (5 children)
I'm surprised it took somebody over 2 hours to post the oblig and objectively delusional comment.
Logically, if it were simple, everybody would do it.
I think the science is going to be disappointed when it finally finds the real cause of runaway weight gain: despair. No one weird old trick to help here. There's one weird old herb that can help here, but *snort* wtf am I thinking! All the data in the world won't help people who don't want to come to that conclusion. Also it's not something you can put in a pill to sell at a massive profit for everybody to take absent-mindedly every day and just work.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @03:44AM (3 children)
It is simple to count calories. But it's much simpler to be a lazy glutton.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @07:21AM (2 children)
No, it's not. Well, unless you mainly eat at home, where you have absolute control of what goes into your food. At least I have never seen any calories (or kilojoules) declaration at the canteen. Sure, you can make rough estimates; the salad surely has less calories than the cream dessert. But you don't know how much hidden sugar is in those meals.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday August 04 2017, @07:54AM (1 child)
Proud to say that I just scored 83% in the Fat department. Was fooled by a bloody 'allibut.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @03:19PM
Of course, FatPhil must score high in Fat ;-)
My strong topic seems to be Fiber.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @08:14AM
We smoke it, chew it, snort it, and it's made into gum and patches. Why can't it be put in a pill?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Immerman on Friday August 04 2017, @03:22AM (5 children)
Hardly novel, and already addressed in the summary - apparently in some individuals the biological switch gets "stuck" in fasting mode - i.e. store all the calories you can. Such unfortunate individuals could eat far fewer calories than you, while exercising just as much, and still gain weight because their body is hard at work preparing them for imminent starvation rather than "wasting" it by burning it off. Depending on just how intense the effect is (and it's worth noting that it's an effect that common sense would suggest intensifies in response to any reduction in calorie intake) they might find it difficult to still get adequate nutrients while lowering their calorie intake enough to actually lose weight.
Now, if they can figure out how to "reset" the switch so they can waste calories as quickly as normal individuals, that would be a dramatic improvement.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by driverless on Friday August 04 2017, @03:40AM (4 children)
Sure, there are people who have genuine medical/clinical reasons why it's a problem, but that's a very, very small subset of the population. What's going to end up being marketed to everyone else is a magic, and inevitably expensive, cure-all that won't provide the results they want it to, while at the same time letting them think they can continue to eat crap and not get any exercise.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by caffeine on Friday August 04 2017, @04:49AM
I'm not sure where you are getting that from? This is new research and shows another method that can lead to obesity. I don't think we have any idea how many people are affected by this.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @04:50AM
Citation needed
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @05:50AM (1 child)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @07:24AM
Actually I could imagine that frequent fasting may be a cause: The body learns that there are frequent famines, so it's better to be prepared all the time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @03:27PM
Foods that suppress the human body's built-in hunger regulation mechanism are high on the glycemic index. Such high-GI foods include sugar, refined grains, and many starches. Low-GI foods include leafy green vegetables and fats.
You have only three sources of energy to pick from: carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Absent body-building, protein as a primary body fuel is problematic. Once you've counted the number of calories consumed in even moderate and heavy exercise, you will realize that you cannot merely work a fat ass away, as it is far too easy to shove still more calories down the pie hole, particularly in the form of carbohydrates. The only choice left is fats.
Sitting on my ass for most of a year and eating NO MORE than 50-100 grams of carbohydrates a day (excepting low-GI carbs from lettuce, etc.) led to 20 kilograms of fat ass disappearing from eating fatty stews, butter-in-everything pan-fried dishes, and lots and lots of meatloaf using "regular fat content" ground beef. After approximately two weeks of eating tasty, flavorful meals, there was NO DESIRE to snack on doritoes, twinkies, or ice cream, and satiation became a regular and automatic function that led to eating less very tasty food without any conscious effort.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 05 2017, @07:35PM
no, the fat is not the problem. fat is what you're supposed to burn for fuel. the sugar, carbs and protein all gets converted into glucose by the body. eat more healthy fats and the liver will turn it into ketones and you can run on that much more often. get yiour cardss from vegetables and a reasonable amount of protein and watch the fat just burn off. no douchbaggery required.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @08:40AM (1 child)
Brain switch to burn fat, no brain=no burn fat.
Conclusion: fatties are stupid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @03:21PM
That's an invalid conclusion, even if the premises (including the implied one that stupid=no brain) were true. At best you could conclude that stupids are fat. Not quite the same statement.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Friday August 04 2017, @10:08AM (3 children)
It really is quite simple, although the underlying biology is not.
The human body possess 2 major mechanisms for metabolizing fuel.(*1)
Fat and glucose. Everything gets turned into on of these.
Glucose is toxic, and therefore there is a tightly controlled (by insulin) level permitted in the blood. Failure of this mechanism is diabetes. Type one diabetes is malfunction in insulin producing cells. Type 2 , is a failure of the *system* due to excessive inequlibrium.
Hence, both facts are true. Diet and exercise will *always* work to help. Some people have problems due to the *amount* of change needed. But there are mechanisms to regulate fat retention.
What most folks are in denial of, is the vast majority self-abuse with food *until* the normal mechanisms are broken, and we call that a disease state.
The FDA "daily recommended limits" are a *complete* fantasy, and may not even within %100 for most people. The good news you can get *tested* for your *personal* calorie limit and staying within %10 of that you *will* start to equilibrate.
(*1) Humans don't burn anything , it's our mitochondria doing the work - every fs of our existences. Highighted because diseases here are a bit more nuanced...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @12:21PM (1 child)
I agree. However - this research suggests that people with the "stuck switch" are working against their own bodies. Unable to brown white fat for fuel, they must get a majority of energy from glucose - which means food or converted liver glycogen. Further, the switch is stuck in the "make more white fat" mode. This would indicate that the person crashes blood sugar //super// hard when out of glucose/glycogen, and has no energy*. Further, after they eat and raise glucose levels, *any* excess gets immediately stored as white fat (for eternity?).
*There are many fat people in my life. This is what I've observed with them - they really *cannot* skip a meal. As an example yesterday, my wife skipped 2 meals and very nearly passed out (could not walk straight, difficulty standing). She is obese-fat - (200#@5'4" & 35). I am not fat - (165@5'9" & 31) and gymnastic - I am currently cutting weight quickly (for performance reasons, ~2#/wk) and am on a 23/1 fasting cycle @ ~1000 calories/day for the last 3 weeks - I have never been dizzy/nauseous due to (significant) calorie restriction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 05 2017, @08:11PM
I do a moderate/lazy version of the ketogenic diet. (search dr. mercola, ketogenic/nutritional ketosis on youtube.) 50% fat, 50% divided between carbs from vegetables and proteins (however it happens any given day). I dropped about 50 lbs in 5 months. I'm also exercising more so that didn't hurt anything. It's gotten easier to exercise with the improved diet though. Watch out for the odd food allergy you didn't know you had when drastically changing your diet. Your friends and family have to eat so often because they are damn near diabetic from their bad diets. Drop all grains, sugar, various poisons(learn where they hide them. "vegetable broth"), etc. substitute them with healthy fats. i used to "have to" eat every three hours and i just thought i had a healthy appetite. uhh, no. We're just highly ignorant of proper nutrition, especially in the US, due in no small part to Big Agra/Food. Watching the videos may open her eyes and once she starts eating these things her cravings will change and it won't matter how often she eats as long as she's eating all the right stuff. i actually crave bowls of fresh greens now, like a damn rabbit. i wonder which is better for me? pizzas by the stack or bowls of fresh greens. Also, once you switch your body over to burning fat you don't need to eat as much. You feel full because fat is what tells your brain that you are full. why do you think the food industry did the whole "low fat" thing? because they know you'll be hungrier and buy more "food" that was cheaper to make because they stole all the food out of it. They even labelled it for people that they know already have eating problems. how clever the little weasels are. The less you cheat on your diet the easier it gets. It's chemical/physical though, not "mentally easier", like diets that aren't really satifying your body.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 04 2017, @02:18PM
Diet and exercise don't always work to help. It depends a great deal on what kind of diet and what kind of exercise. For example, doing yoga all day will make you limber and strong and you'll feel great, but it's not gonna help you lose weight. Eating a mediterranean diet is not gonna help you too much if you've already become insulin resistant. Counting calories is not gonna help you much if the calories you're mainly consuming are carbohydrates.
In the United States you're gonna be out of luck eating anything if it's processed, because everything has added sugar.
Washington DC delenda est.