By Melissa Schorr
NEW YORK, Sep 13 (Reuters Health) - High-fat diets trigger the brain to produce peptides that may alter eating behaviors and body weight in laboratory animals and lead to obesity, according to research findings.
"The fats we eat affect the brain, then the brain determines how we get fat," Sarah Leibowitz, associate professor of neurobiology at The Rockefeller University in New York City, told Reuters Health.
Leibowitz presented her research recently at the American Chemical Society meeting in Chicago, Illinois.
High-fat diets are known to raise the levels of lipids known as triglycerides circulating in the blood. According to Leibowitz's research, these triglycerides seem to stimulate genes in the brain's hypothalamus to produce several neurochemicals. These chemicals in turn produce neuropeptides, or proteins, which may interfere with the feeling of fullness and alter fat storage.
In a study of young normal-weight rats fed an abnormally high-fat diet, a rat's production of elevated triglyceride levels served as a marker of the animal's later tendency to become obese.
The researchers identified two of these "fat-responsive" peptides as orexin and galanin, which were overexpressed in rats with a tendency to gain weight when put on this high-fat diet.
"A single high-fat meal is sufficient to stimulate the hypothalamic expression of 'fat-responsive' genes that produce overeating, enhance fat deposition and ultimately promote obesity," Leibowitz noted.
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