usatoday24
In recent years we have seen progress in the study of the hormones responsible for regulating our appetite and the feeling of satiety, hormones such as those that transmit from the stomach to the brain the information that we have already consumed our ration of food and we can stop. However, now we just found one of these hormones in an unexpected place, in hormones that until now we associated mainly with reproduction.
From the stomach to the brain. A Japanese researchers team He has found A relationship between neurostrogens and appetite regulation.
Neurostrogen. The Estrogens They are hormones that we usually associate mainly with female reproduction. In this context, aspects such as the development and maintenance of female sexual characteristics regulate. But this “family” of hormones has a diversity of members that cover other contexts.
For example we can find the phytostrogen produced by plants or neurostrogens. The latter are produced by the brain, as their name suggests and until now they represented a mystery in our biochemistry since we do not know which or what their exact functions are.
Looking for an answer. The team I investigated precisely The role of these brain hormones. For this they turned to mice in a laboratory. They compared several groups of mice, including some without the capacity to produce estrogen; and others to whom the production of neurostrogens had been inhibited. The latter was eliminated by aromatase, an enzyme used by the brain to synthesize these hormones.
They thus verified that the group of mice that lacked ovaries and those without aromatase showed a greater body mass and greater food consumption compared to the mice of the control group. The team Then he reactivated The gene linked to aromatase, returning the enzyme to its brains. They saw that the mice went on to consume less food.
MC4R. The team found that these mice to whom the ability to synthesize aromatase had been returned and with it neurostrogens showed a “marked increase” in the expression of the melanonortine 4 (MC4R) receptor, a receptor known for its role in the regulation of food consumption.
This led the team to conclude that the neurostrogens produced through aromatase were involved in the expression of the receiver and that it was through it that were able to “suppress” the feeling of hunger.
The role of leptin. The study, explains the responsible team, also indicated that neurostrogens could also increase the ability of the brain to leptin, one of the hormones whose function we already knew related to the regulation of appetite.
“We observe that mice with restored neurostrogens responded more effectively to leptin treatment,” explained in a press release Takanori Hayashi, co -author of the study. “This may be due to the fact that neurostrogen increases the natural response of the body to the mechanisms that suppress appetite.”
The details of the study were published In an article In the magazine The Febs Journal.
The eye put into treatments. The team responsible for the study Mention the possibility that this discovery opens new therapeutic paths focused on development detracts for weight loss.
They also point out that understanding the physiological function of neurostrogen could also help us find ways to regulate estrogen more precisely in our bodies, for example in contexts such as menopause or postpartum.
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Image | Milad Fakurian / Sander Dalhuisen
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