How a body clock may cause obesity. I begin by noting that today’s discussion is not immediately actionable. However, the research findings using rats suggest that the body clock in our brain may have something to do with being overweight or obese. Here is the bottom line finding:
Fed a high-fat diet, rats have a disturbance in their brain’s body clock that regulates the sensation of feeling full (satiety), leading to over-eating and obesity.
Obesity is a chronic disease that is increasing in prevalence worldwide. It is a major contributing factor to poor health in most countries. The numbers in the United States are disturbing: Obesity has increased progressively from 23 percent from 1988 to 1994 to 42 percent from 2017 to 2018.
The problem is not limited to the United States. In 2015, over 600 million adults had obesity worldwide. The prevalence of the condition has doubled in more than 70 countries since 1980 and continues to increase in most other countries.
First, some basic science. We have long believed that we have a master body clock located in a single location — a part of the brain known as the hypothalamus.
We now know that some of the daily rhythms of our bodies (including in the realms of hormones and appetite) have control centers in other parts of the brain and body. For our purposes today, note that these control centers include a group of nerve cells in our ancient brainstem.
I speak of the dorsal vagal complex (DVC). Here’s the thing — the DVC helps regulate food intake by causing us to feel full; the DVC induces satiety. Could the dorsal vagal complex play a meaningful role in obesity? We already know that with obesity, daily rhythms of food consumption and eating-related hormones are diminished or absent. But is this cause of obesity or an effect to it?
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