- Developing obesity results in changes to the brain involving its system for telling a person when they have had enough to eat, a new study finds.
- The study also suggests that such changes may be permanent, perhaps explaining why it is difficult for so many people to keep weight off.
- The study adds new insights to investigating a complicated topic that requires much more research to understand fully.
A new study suggests that obesity causes permanent changes in the brain that prevent it from telling a person when to stop consuming fats and, to a lesser degree, sugar. It may provide an explanation for why weight loss is so difficult to maintain.
In people with obesity, the striatum, the brain region associated with food acquisition, continues to seek food even after the consumption of lipids or fats. The brain also fails to promote a sense of satisfaction by releasing the hormone dopamine.
In lean participants, the delivery of lipids or fats to the digestive system quietened activity in the striatum as dopamine release provided a sense of reward that conveyed satisfaction.
As a follow-up, study participants with obesity were made to lose weight over a period of three months for subsequent testing of the effect on brain response to food intake.
Keeping weight off, even after losing a substantial amount, is notoriously difficult. A 2018 study found that people who lost a significant amount of weight gained about half of it back after two years. By five years, they had regained about 80% of it.
It is possible to keep weight off, but this requires fundamental lifestyle changes, and the new study suggests the brain’s satiety system may not be an ally in this endeavor.
The study is published in
Previous research in animals has found that a high intake of fats disrupts the…
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