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Western diet leading to obesity, says study
Posted on: 16/Jan/2017 4:28:23 PM
A new study gas said that regular intake of a western diet - consisting of foods high in sugars and fats - is leading to an alarming rise of conditions such as overeating and obesity. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of California, Riverside and was published in the journal Physiology and Behaviour.
Say the researchers, We found that chronic consumption of a western diet leads to overeating and obesity due to elevations in peripheral endocannabinoid signalling. The endocannabinoid system is located throughout the mammalian body, including the brain and all peripheral organs, and participates in the control of many physiological functions in the body, including food intake, energy balance, and reward. Our research shows that targeting cannabinoid receptors in the periphery with pharmacological inhibitors that do not reach the brain holds promise as a safe therapeutic approach for the treatment of overeating and diet-induced obesity.
This therapeutic approach to targeting the periphery has substantial advantages over traditional drugs that interact with the brain and cause psychiatric side-effects. The work describes for the first time that overeating associated with chronic consumption of a western diet is driven by an enhancement in endocannabinoid signals generated in peripheral organs. We found blocking the actions of the endocannabinoids with pharmacological inhibitors of cannabinoid receptors in the periphery completely normalised food intake and meal patterns in western diet-induced obese mice to levels found in control lean mice fed standard chow. Importantly, however, other research groups have reported elevations in circulating levels of endocannabinoids in obese human subjects, which suggests that this system may also be overactive in human obesity.
