Obesity should be seen as a brain disorder

That would put him in the same class as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and Asperger’s. A new study has found that obesity was partly caused by changes in the brain during childhood. Obesity is now viewed as a behavioral disease, a model of the destructive choices people make that are detrimental to their health.

But Dr. Harry McKay of Baylor College of Medicine in Texas said rethinking this could be “the key to ending the worldwide obesity epidemic.”

The number of obese Americans has been on the rise for decades, and four in 10 are now medically overweight. In the UK, this figure is about 30 percent.

American President Joe Biden recently announced his plan to fight obesity.

This includes mandatory food labeling on the front of food to emphasize that snacks are too fatty, sweet, or salty.

And the criteria by which food manufacturers must label their products as “healthy” will also become more stringent under new US regulations.

A new study in mice looked at epigenetics, the brain developmental system that determines which genes will and will not be used in different cell types. One part of the brain, called the arcuate nucleus, has been found to undergo many epigenetic changes in very early childhood. During this time, the brain is also especially sensitive to programming that will later determine how well one can regulate body weight.

This means that people can put on extra pounds later in life if changes in the arcuate nucleus go wrong during childhood.

When the researchers compared the regions of the brain where changes occur in mice and humans, they were surprised to find that the location in rodents overlapped with the part in humans associated with obesity. And these changes occur earlier in women than in men.

In his study, Dr. McKay said: “We believe that public health measures to contain the worldwide epidemic of obesity will be beneficial if obesity is viewed as a neurodevelopmental disorder.”

The experts called for further research into the role of epigenetics in the development of obesity. It is hoped that this will open the door to new, more effective ways to treat the disease.

*The results were published in Science Advance.

Christina DENISYUK.

Photo: Shutterstock / New Africa