obesity

Altering DNA methylation in a particular area of the hypothalamus halved the animals’ voluntary exercise as adults.

Physical activity, independent of diet, shifts the composition of bacteria in the intestines, spurring researchers to search for species that might provide benefits akin to working out.

The Purdue University nutrition researcher delves into the details of how fat tissue affects tumors.

Developing computational tools to analyze the reams of microbial sequencing data his lab generates, the UC San Diego microbiologist is a pioneer of microbiome research.

The tool weighs millions of variants to determine how susceptible a person is to becoming obese.

Researchers disentangle how adipocytes communicate with prostate tumors in mice.

Countries with populations whose average adult height grew late last century are more likely to have high rates of babies delivered surgically.

The variants associated with the mood disorder included those without metabolic risks, suggesting it is the psychological effects of obesity at play.

Activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex was the best correlate of weight loss in a study of people on a restricted-calorie diet.

Inflammation may be a strong contender for the connection between mom’s weight and children’s neurodevelopment, according to lab studies on animals.

The brain’s immune cells gobble up synapses in the hippocampi of rodents fed high-fat or high-sugar diets.

Even in mice with a busted circadian clock and an unhealthy diet, carefully timed feeding overcomes the rodents’ predispositions for metabolic diseases.

Low levels of a biochemical process involved in fat breakdown predicts weight gain and metabolic complications more than a decade later.

Three studies—one of mice and two of human genetics—describe the role of two proteins, adenylyl cyclase and melanocortin 4 receptor, in the development of obesity and diabetes. 

Asprosin—involved in a rare disease called neonatal progeroid syndrome—targets neurons to stimulate appetite, and blocking the hormone wards off weight gain in rodents.

Research in human patients and mice reveals the role of the circadian clock in the risk of heart damage at different times of day.

GDF-15 lowers body weight in mice and primates.

A small patch of engineered cells makes an enzyme that stimulates insulin release.

Just by activating these immune cells in the brain, scientists could make mice eat more and burn fewer calories.

Regularly taking breaks from eating—for hours or days—can trigger changes both expected, such as in metabolic dynamics and inflammation, and surprising, as in immune system function and cancer progression.