Obesity should be considered a brain disorder like autism or ADHD, US doctors sensationally claim
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Obesity should be considered a brain disorder like autism or ADHD, doctors argue
- It occurs as a result of brain developments that occur in childhood, the study found
- Preventing this could stop the ‘global obesity epidemic’, researchers say
- The study in mice found that children’s brains are sensitive to later weight regulation
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Obesity should be classified as a brain development disorder, doctors say.
That would put it in the same class as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and Asperger’s.
They made the recommendation after a study indicated that obesity was caused in part by changes in the brain during childhood.
Obesity is currently considered a behavioral disease – a pattern of destructive choices people make that damage their health.
But Dr Harry MacKay, of the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, said rethinking this “could hold the key to stopping the global obesity epidemic.”
The number of obese Americans is rising decades, with four in ten now medically overweight. In the UK it’s about 30 percent.
President Joe Biden yesterday announced his plan for the biggest crackdown on obesity in 50 years.
It includes mandatory nutrition labeling on the front of food products to highlight snacks that are too fatty, sugary or salty.
And with the new plans, the criteria for food manufacturers to market their products as ‘healthy’ will also become stricter.
Obesity can cause heart disease, the leading cause of death in both the US and UK. The study found that the brain changes that predetermine obesity are more likely to occur in women than in men.
The new study in mice looked at epigenetics, the brain development system that determines which genes will and will not be used in different cell types.
The Texas researchers found that a part of the brain called the arcuate nucleus undergoes many epigenetic changes in early childhood.
During this time, the brain is also particularly sensitive to programming, which will later determine how well it can regulate body weight.
This means people can pile on the pounds later in life if changes in the arcuate core during childhood go awry, the researchers said.
When the researchers compared the areas of the brain where the changes occur in mice and humans, they were surprised to find that the location in rodents overlaps with the part in humans associated with obesity.
The researchers also found that these changes are more likely to occur in women than in men.
dr. MacKay wrote in the study, “We believe that public health interventions to curb the global obesity epidemic would benefit from considering obesity as a neurodevelopmental disorder.”
The experts have called for further research into the role of epigenetics and the development of obesity.
It is hoped that this may open the door to new ways to screen and treat the disease.
The findings were published in the journal Advances in Science.