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Wednesday, August 27 (HealthDay News) - A chemical in the brain May play a role in regulating appetite and the likelihood of becoming obese, according to a new study.
For the study, researchers examined a group of 33 people who have the WAGR syndrome, a hereditary disorder that occurs in one third of 500000 to one million people. WAGR is an acronym for the symptoms associated with the condition: Wilms’ tumor (cancer of the kidney), aniridia (absence of the iris), genital and urinary abnormalties, and mental retardation.
Some people with this syndrome WAGR absence of a gene in brain chemistry, brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Animal studies have suggested that BDNF May help control appetite and weight.
The researchers found that 19 (58 percent) of the 33 study participants had cancelled all or a substantial part of a copy of the BDNF gene and a low blood levels of BDNF.
The 19 participants were obese at 10 years and has a strong tendency to exaggerate. Participants who have two copies of the BDNF gene, furthermore, were not more likely to develop overweight as children in the general population and did not exceptionally high level of surplus.
“This is a promising new initiative in the search for biological pathways that contribute to obesity,” Dr. Duane Alexander, director of the U.S. National Institute of Health Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the institute said in a press release. “This discovery could lead to the development of new drugs to regulate appetite in people who have not succeeded with other treatments.”
The results were published in the August 28 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine.
According to lead author Dr. Jack A. Yanovski, Unit NICHD on growth and obesity, BDNF se cree to work with a number of other substances that regulate appetite and body weight, including the appetite of the hormone leptin signalling .
Future research on the relationship between leptin and BDNF May lead to the development of new treatments for obesity.
Yorum Yaz