The Relevance of Obesity

It’s no surprise that obesity has become one of the prevalent issues in the United States. As of 2015-2016, the current statistics of the United States’ population affected by obesity falls at 39.8%, affecting about 93.3 million people¹, and by now, it has most likely increased. 

Furthermore, the United States is not the only country that has to face obesity; in fact, it seemed that obesity has become an evergrowing problem for most of the world, with a total of over 650 million adults and 41 million children in the world as of 2016 being recorded as obese or overweight². So it is not far to say that perhaps obesity has now become a world problem, and not just a problem seem in the United States.

"Global Overweight and Obesity in Adults"

 

However, what is alarming about these high rates of obesity is what may come of these rates. In a recent article by New York Times⁴, Nicholas Bakalar writes that of the linkage between obesity of colorectal cancer, specifically in women. He referenced a study done by JAMA Oncology that concluded that the more body mass index the women have, the higher the risk they are at of getting colorectal cancer. While the study was solely about obesity’s linkage to colorectal cancer in females, it may be possible to extend this idea to males, as well.

With all that obesity is related to, it is best to further look into the studies of obesity and understand how this eating disorder comes about in order to find the best solution to alleviate the symptoms, which can possibly help prevent things such as colorectal cancer and the like. That is why such studies as Dr. Jen Beshel’s study of obesity-linked behavior in Drosophila flies is important in current events. In her study, she was determined to search for the neural circuits that control the appetites of the fruit flies and its relation to food oder attraction, focusing on those that produced the proteins upd1 and upd2, both relating to the leptin pathways that play a role in obesity. She then found how the lack of upd2 caused increase feelings of satiety in the flies, causing a reduction of weight. However, it does not stop a fly’s attraction to food odor. Furthermore, she found that upd1 acts as a homeostasis signal to help with hunger and satiety in the body. When she experimented with upd1 knockdown flies, the flies portrayed signs of obesity, eating more than usual. Such discoveries could play into discovering a potential method to alleviate the symptoms, which is all the more reasons to further study into the neural circuits that play into obesity, such as Dr. Beshel has. 

While many continue their research further into understanding obesity as a disorder and how it works in the brain, there are other topics in relation to obesity that could be pursued for research. As the New York Times article pointed out, there is some correlation between colorectal cancer and obesity. One could possibly try and explore this correlation a little more, trying to see how far can this discovery be applied to the human population as a whole. Then, one could better understand if alleviating obesity would better alleviate the risk of getting colorectal cancer. However, there are other things that are probably at the better interest of the public that can be studied. This may be just one of the very many, but again, it is better to look into things that are more relevant to the problem so that we can get closer to the solution. 

Footnotes

1. “Overweight & Obesity.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 13 Aug. 2018, 13 Oct. 2018, www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html.
2. “Obesity and Overweight.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 13 Oct. 2018, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight.
3. “Global Overweight and Obesity in Adults.” World Obesity Federation | Presentation Graphics, www.worldobesity.org/data/obesity-data-repository/resources/charts/3/.
4. Bakalar, Nicholas. “Obesity Tied to Colon Cancer Risk in Younger Women.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 Oct. 2018, 13 Oct. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/well/live/obesity-tied-to-colon-cancer-risk-in-younger-women.html.
5. Beshel, Jennifer, Josh Dubnau, and Yi Zhong. “A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila.” Cell metabolism 25.1 (2017): 208–217. PMC. Web. 13 Oct. 2018.