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Obesity: hypothalamus also monitors fatty acid levels and responds by controlling appetite

Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have shown that reducing levels of fatty acids in the hypothalamus causes rats to overeat and become obese.

Their results suggest that restoring fatty-acid levels in the brain may be a promising way to treat obesity.

The study, published in the Nature Neuroscience, was led by Luciano Rossetti, director of the Diabetes Research Center at Einstein.

The brain's hypothalamus keeps track of the body's nutritional status by monitoring the blood levels of several different hormones and nutrients.
Taking this information into account, the hypothalamus regulates our energy intake and metabolism.

In a study published in Science, Rossetti and his colleagues showed how the hypothalamus monitors and regulates glucose levels in the body.
The present study shows that this brain region also monitors fatty acid levels and responds by controlling appetite.

The study focused on malonyl CoA, a molecule suspected of being one of the critical nutrients influencing hypothalamic regulation of eating behavior.
Previous studies had shown that hypothalamic levels of malonyl CoA increase markedly after meals and are suppressed by fasting.

The Einstein researchers wanted to know whether sustained suppression of this nutrient within the hypothalamus could result in obesity.
To find out, they piggybacked an enzyme known to degrade malonyl CoA onto an adeno-associated virus and injected the virus into the hypothalamus of rats. The injections caused a chronic decrease in malonyl CoA levels, which dramatically increased the rats' food intake and led to obesity that was maintained for at least four months.

" We showed in this study that disrupting malonyl-CoA levels in this region of the brain impairs the nutrient-sensing mechanism by which the hypothalamus modulates food intake to maintain normal weight," says Rossetti." Figuring out a way to re-adjust malonyl-CoA levels in the human hypothalamus could lead to innovative therapies not only to treat obesity but to help prevent diabetes and other consequences of being overweight."

Source: Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 2006

Obesity Article

[yuliyasha]

I hope I understood it correctly. It seems that suppression of malonyl CoA willl increase feeling of hunger. This result in desire to eat more than the body needs. Well, it makes me think, maybe there's a way to increase amount of CoA enzyme...would that make the person feel full faster? Would that be an interesting way to lose weight?!I'm sure the scietists already came up with something for that.

[Irving]

Originally Posted by yuliyasha

I hope I understood it correctly. It seems that suppression of malonyl CoA willl increase feeling of hunger. This result in desire to eat more than the body needs. Well, it makes me think, maybe there's a way to increase amount of CoA enzyme...would that make the person feel full faster? Would that be an interesting way to lose weight?!I'm sure the scietists already came up with something for that.

Sounds like you understood it correctly. I don't know if one would want to increase CoA in general so much as one would want to regulate it during periods when it would normally be surpressed. This seems like a much safer alternative than the thermogenics and diet pills people take for appetite suppressants, which normally contain large amounts of caffeine.

[yuliyasha]

I agree. Well, also those diet pills sometimes contain hormones--steroids which throw your entire body off balance. Yeah you might lose weight after initial therapy but then you come back with appetite alterations and changes in metabolism which make your body store fat instead of burning it. I don't remember the exact name of the drug but it was on TV for a while about a year ago...no I don't hear from it. Too many side effects.