A new discovery as to how obesity progresses
Posted on sep 2011
We all know the effects of obesity over our bodies. Nevertheless, we are not able to understand what internal processes occur with the development of this disease.
Obesity has become an increasing health issue over the years, due to the humans tendency for overeating, a habit inherited from our ancestors.
A person is considered to be overweight if his/hers BMI (body mass index) is between 25 and 30 kg/m² and obese if the BMI level is over 30 kg/m².
Today, as the sedentary lifestyle can be observed in an increasing number of people, obesity has become a real worldwide issue and for researchers it is clear that just telling people to eat less and play sports, it is not enough.
This is why researchers all over the world are looking for medical ways in which they can help people not become overweight.
A group of researchers at Monash University declared that in response to the fat deposits, our body produces leptin. Leptin is a hormone which regulates the energy we spend and produce and which also regulates our appetite and metabolism.
This hormone acts at the brain level and instructs it to decrease food intake and increase the level of energy we spend as to maintain a weight at a normal level.
Overweight persons don't respond to the signals sent by the leptin hormone. The researchers called this "leptin-resistance" and were able to identify what causes this resistance.
Basically, this leptin-resistance is very similar to the diabetes resistance to insulin. It is considered to be a metabolism disorder and there are various theories about what is causing it.
However, two causes were already known by the scientific world and now with the studies conducted on mice, a third one has been discovered.
These three causes are all negative protein regulators of the leptin and researchers are taking into consideration the need for shutting off all three regulators in order to obtain results.
The study was published in the journal Cell Metabolism and the leading researcher of the group was Professor Tony Tiganis from the Monash Obesity and Diabetes Institute.
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