Brain Function Illuminating Causes and Possible Solutions to Obesity

Obesity has been prevalent throughout history but has never been such a public health crisis until now. Chronic food storage has been an issue for the human race since the dawn of time, so it is crazy to see how the tables have turned in modern society and overconsumption of food is the new nutritional cause of death. Obesity is a crisis on not just a local or national scale, but on a global scale affecting parts of every continent. Finding a way to end obesity seems near impossible at this stage of the epidemic, but researchers around the world work in many different ways to pinpoint genetic, biological and societal causes to this problem. For some obese people, it’s not as easy as changing their diet and starting to exercise more. As simple as that solution may sound, it’s a difficult one to start and stay steady with.

            Dr. Jen Beshel examines the behavior in obese flies known as Drosophlia in her research titled “A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila.” She looks at the pathways in the brain that could be a precursor to obesity and focuses on the proteins linked to those pathways, specifically upd1 and upd2 which aare mammalian leptin homologs. She found that upd1’s job is to stop overconsumption and upd2’s job is to increase hunger. Taking away protein upd2 resulted in a lower weight in the flies because it decreased their hunger. Taking away protein upd1 led the flies to overeat, leading to obesity. Her discoveries on the causes of obesity through neural pathways illuminate a need to focus on how brain function is associated with the physicality of the obesity epidemic.

            Researchers in the Laboratoire Biologie Fonctionnelle Adaptative at the Université Paris Diderot have looked at other biological causes to obesity. Their published work titled “Hypothalamic AgRP-neurons control peripheral substrate utilization and nutrient partitioning”

 aims to blame the malfunction of the brain as the primary cause leading to obesity-linked diseases, specifically the AgRP neuropeptide found in the hypothalamus. This controls the fate on nutrients in the pancreas, liver and muscles. They took out this neuropeptide in mice and found that even through feeding them a normal diet, they became obese. When the mice were fed a high fat diet, their glucose metabolism was improved. These results show that AgRP neurons also affect the partitioning of nutrients throughout the body. Taking out AgRP neurons give the animal the ability to adapt to a high-fat diet more efficiently. Comprehending the way this all works will illuminate ways to treat obesity-linked diseases like diabetes.

            It’s hard to prove that genetics is a cause to the spread of obesity. It takes a long time for mutations to form across generations and obesity has spiked up within the past 40 years. Focusing on the biological, physical and societal indicators is most important for obesity prevention and treatment. It’s been researched and shown that “obesity genes” don’t necessarily cause one to become overweight. It’s a combination of multiple factors that lead to an obese lifestyle.

Solutions to obesity are still scarce. These studies bring light to some possible causes and how brain function affects this physical illness. Current studies show that reversing obesity seems unreachable. The variety in all of the studies surrounding obesity make it clear that there is not one specific cause to obesity. Many different factors in the brain, in the body and in the life of the affected person contribute to the poor health lifestyle. Each person is affected differently and thus will have to be treated differently.

Works Cited

Beshel, J, et al. “A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila.” Cell Metabolism., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 10 Jan. 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28076762

“Genes Are Not Destiny.” Obesity Prevention Source, 11 Apr. 2016, www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/genes-and-obesity/.

Joly-Amado, Aurélie, et al. “Hypothalamic AgRP-Neurons Control Peripheral Substrate Utilization and Nutrient Partitioning.” The EMBO Journal, Nature Publishing Group, 14 Nov. 2012, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3501217/.