We had been trying to know what neurostrogens served why they served. We have just discovered a clue: they regulate the appetite

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. In Xataka | We already know where the microplastics get the lettuce that you eat in the salad: from the air Image | Milad Fakurian / Sander Dalhuisen

500 million years of evolution separate us from sea stars, but there is something that has not changed so much: our appetite

Hormones are molecules that exert the functions of messengers in our body. They take part in a large number of physiological processes, among which are the food and digestion of the food we consume. Among them, we know several hormones that regulate appetite and satiety. Evolutionary History A new study has analyzed The evolutionary history of bombsin, a hormone capable of transmitting the signal of satiety to our brain. This hormone had already been detected in some species of vertebrates and we know that it is capable of exercising this function in humans. Now we have found the genes that encode these hormones in very distant species evolutionarily, such as sea stars. Bombsin Bombsine was discovered in 1971, not in humans but in an amphibian, the belly toad fire (Bombina Bombina). It is a small peptide similar to those used by our own body to transmit (among other “messages”) the sign that we have satiated, molecules such as glucagon, the gastric inhibitor peptide (GIP), or the peptide similar to glucagon-1 (LPG-1). The researchers who studied the bombsin verified that, by injecting it into mammals, this also caused a feeling of satiety. This caused the subjects to reduce the amount of foods they consumed and space their intakes more over time. Needle in a haystack. In his study, the team responsible for New Research, began to study the genomes of different invertebrate animals until it ran into genes capable of encoding hormones similar to bombsin. And they found them in several equinoderms species (Echinodermata), As for example in the common sea star (Asterias Rubens), but also in hedgehogs and sea cucumbers. “It was like finding a needle in a haystack,” explained in a press release Maurice Elphick, co -author of the study, “but finally we discover the genes that encode a neurohormone similar to the stars of sea stars and their relatives.” Arbn.After that, the team studied the function of this hormone, which they called Arbn. Through mass spectrometry, the equipment was able to determine the molecular structure of the compound, thanks to which they could synthesize it and submit it to test. Thus they found that the hormone had an impact on the gastric processes of sea stars. “When I put Arbn, I saw that it caused contraction in the stomach of the sea star,” Weiling Huang addedCo -author of the study. “This, Sig would, that Arbn could be involved in stimulating the stomach retraction when the sea star stops eating. And that is precisely what I saw. When I injected Arbn into the sea stars (…) it made the stomach retract (…). What is more, arbn also delayed the beginning of the food, since the stars injected with arb those that water was injected. “ The details of the study were published In an article In the magazine Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Making historians. The study gives us new clues about how our digestive system and its tools to control its internal processes evolved. A track that allows us to ride ourselves 500 million years ago, when the last common ancestor of humans and sea stars inhabited the earth. But the finding also has significance for the pharmacological industry. In recent years they have seen the rise of various treatments based on hormone analogous substances such as LPG-1 or GIP. Compounds such as semaglutida (better known by its commercial name Ozempic) or the tirzepatida (Tirzepatida) were born as diabetes treatments but achieved success as losing weight formulas. These compounds emulate the hormones that our body secretes behind meals, hormones that fulfill the function of communicating to organs such as the pancreas that our digestive process is underway but that also transmit to the brain the message that we have satiated our appetite. Compounds such as Bombsine, Arbn, or similar could perhaps be used also In this context. In Xataka | Japanese researchers have studied how to eat less. Your verdict is extremely simple: eat more slowly Image | Hans Hillewaert, CC by-SA 4.0

We know that bad sleep can make our appetite more difficult. Now we are discovering why

The peptide similar to type 1 glucagon (or LPG-1) is a key hormone in the regulation of appetite and the feeling of satiety. His name may not be immediately familiar to us but we have heard long and taught about compounds that act as their analogues. Compounds such as Semaglutida, which if it still doesn’t sound to us probably does one of the names with which it is marketed: Ozempic. New hormone. Now a study announces a New mechanism which could lead to similar results. The difference is in the hormone in question. And it is that the new work has found a hormone also linked to our appetite, which they have baptized as Raptina. It is a hormone also linked to our sleep cycles. Sleep and obesity. Exists A relationship quite Documented between sleep and overweight quality (and also with certain metabolic diseases). We can intuit that people who sleep worse rest less and therefore are less likely to burn the calories they consume, but some previous studies seem to have observed that this is not the case. Rather opposite: When we sleep more this does not seem to affect the energy we spend so much but We tend to consume it more. In other words, when we rest more we eat more calories, but without substantial changes in our physical activity. The hormones of appetite. To explain this phenomenon, the team was searching for compounds that could be behind this increase in our appetite. They found a hypochipothalamic hormone derived from the RCN2 protein (Reticulocalbin-2) to which they called Raptina (Raptin). This hormone is present in both mice and humans. The team observed that the presence of this hormone reached its peaks while we slept, and that the lack of sleep was linked to a lower presence of the compound in our body. They also observed that this hormone adhered to metabrotropic receptors 3 (GRM3) in the Hypothalamus neurons inhibiting appetite, and in the stomach also inhibiting gastric emptying. Finding the finding. The team contrasted its observations, first analyzing how sleep problems affected the secretion of this hormone in patients with obesity. Secondly, they found through a genetic analysis that people with variants in the RCN2 gene that reduced the ability to segregate this hormone were linked to obesity and the so -called “night feeding syndrome”. The details of the study were published In an article In the magazine Cell Research. A race at multiple speeds. The success of Ozempic, the drug against diabetes converted into treatment to lose weight, has led numerous laboratories to redouble their efforts in the search for a compound capable of emulating its fame. The advantage in this “career” has been obtained with the same effects. Until one of those treatments arrives, what we can detach from this study is that, if our goal is to lose weight, an indispensable step is to try to sleep more and sleep better. In Xataka | Dopamine is one of the best known hormones of our body. It is actually much more than that Image | Monstera / I Yunmai

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