Brain's Weight Switch Found: May Let Us Eat What We Want, Finally
Brain's Weight Switch Found: May Let Us Eat What We Want, Finally
This could be a groundbreaking advancement in obesity treatment that allows people to lose weight without compromising appetite or avoiding fats.
A new discovery reveals that astrocytes, star-shaped cells in the brain, play a key role in regulating fat metabolism and obesity. These cells act on a cluster of neurons, known as the GABRA5 cluster, effectively acting as a “switch” for weight regulation.
The MAO-B enzyme in these astrocytes was identified as a target for obesity treatment, influencing GABA secretion and thus weight regulation.
KDS2010, a selective and reversible MAO-B inhibitor, successfully led to weight loss in obese mice without impacting their food intake, even while consuming a high-fat diet, and is now in Phase 1 clinical trials.
You can eat anything you like, as much as you like, followed by a pill. Sound like an environmental and social and poverty-problem disaster. Pretty much a theme of the Hunger Games.
The Romans called it "eat what you want, go vomit, keep eating", nowadays we call that bulimia, coming soon: "eat what you want, take a pill, keep eating"... somehow makes me think that might not be healthy either.
That's actually a myth.
Macrobius uses the plural vomitoria to refer to the passages through which spectators could “spew forth” into their seats at public entertainment venues. Vomitorium/vomitoria are still used today by archaeologists as architectural terms.
Here’s todays winner for most unintelligible title
Funnily, I understood that. There's been a theory that our current obesity epidemic is caused by an environmental factor influencing our brains into targeting a higher ideal weight than it otherwise should. This is the 'switch' the title is referring to, and they've presumably discovered its existence and a way to influence it. Of course, there might be more than one...
I wanted a huge brain and am now thoroughly disappointed 😞
Every time I see one of these weight loss miracles, I wait for the other shoe to drop... and it usually does.
As I have learned the hard way in my own life, the weight loss miracle is setting a calorie limit and strictly adhering to it (barring medical complications... which, let's face it, most of the people who say those cause issues with them losing weight probably don't have them).
The weight loss miracle I'm waiting on is the pill that rewires your brain to change your relationship with food because, man... that's the hard part. Having to constantly fight my own brain - no, you aren't hungry, you're bored; yes, you actually are satisfied eating a happy meal for 550 cals, you actually do not need a 2 cheeseburger meal large size at 1200 cals, and so on - that's the struggle for me. I'm down from 270 to 240 so far, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't still a constant fight, which is probably what makes relapsing after taking all these drugs such a common thing.
The weight loss miracle I’m waiting on is the pill that rewires your brain to change your relationship with food because, man…
This is what the new class of weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy do. They also appear to help curb other addictions like alcohol. But good luck affording them right now.
I had actually looked into that and yeah, because it isn't technically indicated for weight loss most insurance companies have dropped covering it barring severe medical need. Unfortunately, I'm like 80lbs overweight, and even having high blood pressure wasn't enough to drop the $300/no it would cost out of pocket.
It makes sense, I mean why cover $300/mo while I lose weight when you can cover my eventual six figure bypass and hospital stay, or roll the dice and hope I just die?
I did hear that there is some version of it that has (or is soon getting) approval for weight loss so... maybe!
Or how about regulate the sugar and salt content in foods? No? More magic diet medications. Got it.
Given that it may be more likely for us to put up a Solar Shield than curb our fossil fuel usage, I think we are too stuck in a "fix things after the fact" culture than using preventative solutions.
I feel like their argument against it probably needs a little unpacking.
It seems a little disingenuous to me to only examine a model where carbon emissions don't decrease and then attribute the result to the shield. If the shield is used in addition to reducing our carbon output we'd presumably be cooling things off in both the short and long term.
The result of failing to reduce our carbon emissions is already projected to be essentially apocalyptic in scope. The rest of the planet might luck out if our own actions reduce us to a population that we're physically incapable of continuing to output enough carbon to keep warming it, but human civilization certainly doesn't seem like it can survive keeping it up at the very least.
If we do get it together push against the wishes of the greediest humans and act as responsible stewards of the planet, it would be smart to try to save as much as possible. If a solar shield can help protect our biodiversity and the stability of our civilization while we get our collective shit together, that's fantastic. It may even bring with it a sense of urgency and collective responsibility to fix the problem before anything happens to our buffer.
I get the arguments about the rapidity of change if the shield fails and the difficulty of animals migrating much more quickly, but if something doesn't give soon they're not going to have much of anywhere to migrate anyway.
At what point does the potential benefit of the shield outweigh the risk?
If I'm falling out of an airplane and my chute is kinda lopsided or whatever in a way that might strangle me if i don't get my head out of the way, am I just going to let myself hit the ground instead? Or am I going to take the shot I've got and make the most of it?
We're in freefall and the ground is down there somewhere, rapidly coming up to make friends. We need something now.
If this is it I say we take it. And we let it be the act that prompts us to be responsible with our planet.
The idea is to enjoy yourself without consequences.
The problem with regulating unhealthy food is that it is likely to jack up the price of the only affordable option for a lot of people. Maybe something like subsidizing and lowering cost of healthier foods to make them more affordable instead would be good.
Salt doesn't make you put on weight.
It's also all carbs, fat and protein.
But where does all the excess energy go? You can't cheat basic physics
You just don't digest as much nor store as much calories. So your feces and urine, as well as exhalation.
It's not cheating basic physics, there's just a lot of misunderstanding about how weight works in biology. Cico is not what many people believe it to be.
Absorbed calories in spent calories out would be more accurate, but nobody wants to do the more complicated math.
And some processes can technically be calorie neutral and still affect weight (like say how much water we hold)
Believe it or not, what you swallow has almost nothing to do with your weight. The only place the body absorbs energy from food is in the intestines, and the brain controls that process.
The digestive tract is a tube, open at both ends, through which food passes. The process of extracting energy from that food is complex and highly tunable: the brain controls the production and secretion of hundreds of enzymes and other chemicals, as well as the physical action of the muscles lining the tube.
The 'basic physics' here begins at the intestinal wall, not the mouth.
"almost nothing"? That's dramatic, and wrong.
Believe it or not, what you swallow has almost nothing to do with your weight. The only place the body absorbs energy from food is in the intestines, and the brain controls that process.
I would believe it if I started gaining weight by just breathing. Also, no. Not the only place. Part of the alcohol consumed is absorbed through the stomach.
The digestive tract is a tube, open at both ends, through which food passes. The process of extracting energy from that food is complex and highly tunable: the brain controls the production and secretion of hundreds of enzymes and other chemicals, as well as the physical action of the muscles lining the tube.
The brain controls pretty much everything, and this everything is highly tunable. I mean, how else would well adjusted people adapt to the highly complex lives they live as adults? With commercial pills?
The digestive process is much more complicated than basic physics. There are all kinds of processes happening, some of them not yet understood, that regulate your appetite, weight gain, energy, etc. It’s different in each individual and for each individual it can change through various external factors.
Since nobody else who answered you read the article:
Heat. They discovered a way to trigger the part of the brain that regulates heat production by brown fat tissue.
That's the bit they mentioned, anyway. It sounds like in this scenario they tried two different diets, and the higher-calorie one produced more body heating. I imagine appetite regulation would also play a part "in the wild".
Thanks you! That makes a lot of sense
But where does all the excess energy go?
Down the toilet
https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/11/a-chemical-hunger-part-ii-current-theories-of-obesity-are-inadequate/ is a good analysis of why calories in calories out is both true and not a good model for how weight gain/loss works in people.
Look up nutrient bioavailability, which can vary between individuals.
The body can choose to absorb more or less (and the brain have no conscious control) by regulating absorption differently. This regulation is typically used to keep your levels of nutrients steady (some stuff we eat would be deadly in the doses we eat them if it weren't for the fact that the body can simply dump most of the particular substance until we're running low)
Yeah I'm gonna nope on that. Messing with brain switchea so you can binge on food seems like an episode of black mirror.
I imagine the way this would work it you'd just get full really quickly if you were eating something heavy.
ITT: People with extremely strong emotions about weight and extremely weak evidence to back up those feelings.
KDS2010, a selective and reversible MAO-B inhibitor
This seems like a really odd result. We already have MAOI drugs, they were the first class of antidepressant drugs invented accidentally in the 50s when they found the tuberculosis drug iproniazid made people happier. The selective and reversible MAO-B inhibitor selegiline has been used for years to treat parkinson's disease. None of these drugs are known to induce weight loss.
Well, that would be world-changing!
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