Obesity Starts in the Developing Brain: Study
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What if a baby's developing brain at the critical time just before birth and in the early days after establish the lifetime risk for obesity? Previous research has suggested that human genes associated with obesity determine whether a person will have a hard time maintaining a healthy weight later in life. For decades, researchers have looked for links between genetic variants and body mass index (BMI), explains Robert Waterland, PhD, professor of pediatrics-nutrition at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. The problem, he says, is the genetic ties found so far don't explain weight gain and who is most at risk.
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@lisee The research team, led by Harry MacKay, PhD, a postdoctoral associate in pediatrics-nutrition at Baylor, focused on a tiny section of the brain called the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus, which regulates the body's energy balance between food intake, physical activity and metabolism. They studied mice in the first few weeks of life and found that the arcuate nucleus undergoes extensive growth in a critical window of time when brains are particularly sensitive to programming, which will later determine how well the body senses whether it is hungry and when the body has enough food.