Obesity due to stress

A study of the Medical Center of the Georgetown University, in Washington, United States, discovered a couple of years ago a biological mechanism that linked the chronic stress with the obesity .

The team, led by the doctor Zukia Zukowska , observed in a group of mice that chronic stress produced in their organism the release of a neuropeptide called NPY , which stimulated the profit of abdominal weight .

The scientists blocked the receptors of that molecule and the accumulation levels of grease they descended. According to the authors of the study published in the scientific journal Nature, the results obtained could pave the way to develop drugs in the future to reduce obesity in people who suffer chronic stress .

 

Abdominal fat by hormones

For the doctor Mónica Katz, director of the Postgraduate in Nutrition of the Favaloro University of Buenos Aires (Argentina), "the accumulation of fats in the abdominal area would be determined, in turn, by means of two other substances secreted by humans in response to the stress : the catecholamines-adrenaline Y noradrenaline and the corticoids ".

When the individual ingests food, the specialist explains, she obtains energy reserves that are deposited in her body as grease backup.

There are two effects that NPY produces on the Abdominal fat deep: it stimulates the proliferation of adipose cells that store the grease and generates new blood vessels that bring blood flow and nutrients to those new cells .

For Katz the reduction of Abdominal fat favors the health of people, because it represents a risk factor for both cardiovascular diseases as for type 2 diabetes :

"With the discovery of this mechanism new therapeutic possibilities are opened, since working with antagonists of these same receptors, the formation of new patients could be stopped adipose tissue "says Katz.