{"id":4557,"date":"2023-12-17T10:00:19","date_gmt":"2023-12-17T04:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/escortsservice.com.au\/blog\/what-causes-obesity-more-science-points-to-the-brain\/"},"modified":"2023-12-17T10:00:19","modified_gmt":"2023-12-17T04:30:19","slug":"what-causes-obesity-more-science-points-to-the-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/escortsservice.com.au\/blog\/what-causes-obesity-more-science-points-to-the-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"What Causes Obesity? More Science Points to the Brain"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Dec. 15, 2023 \u2013 For much of his life, 32-year-old Michael Smith had a war going on in his head.<\/p>\n

After a big meal<\/span>, he knew he should be full. But an inexplicable hunger would drive him to pick up the fork again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cravings for fried chicken or gummy bears overwhelmed him, fueling late-night DoorDash orders that \u2013 despite their bounty of fat and sugar \u2014 never satisfied him.<\/p>\n

He recalls waking up on the couch, half-eaten takeout in his lap, feeling sluggish and out of control.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like I was food drunk,\u201d recalls Smith, who lives in Boston. \u201cI had a moment I looked at myself in the mirror. I was around 380 pounds, and I said, \u2018OK, something has got to give.\u2019\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Smith is among the 42% of U.S. adults living with obesity, a misunderstood and stubbornly hard-to-manage condition that doctors have only recently begun to call a disease. Its root causes have been debated for decades, with studies suggesting everything from genes to lifestyle to a shifting food supply loaded with carbohydrates and ultra-processed foods<\/span>. Solutions have long targeted self-discipline and a simple \u201ceat less, move more\u201d strategy with remarkably grim results.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Those who successfully slim down tend to gain back 50% of that weight within 2 years, and 80%<\/a> within 5 years. Meanwhile, the obesity epidemic marches on.<\/p>\n

But a new frontier of brain-based therapies \u2013 from GLP-1 agonist drugs thought to act on reward and appetite centers to deep brain stimulation aimed at resetting neural circuits \u2013 has kindled hope among patients like Smith and the doctors who treat them. The treatments, and theories behind them, are not without controversy. They\u2019re expensive, have side effects<\/a>, and, critics contend, pull focus from diet and exercise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Butmost agree that in the battle against obesity, one crucial organ has been overlooked.<\/p>\n

\u201cObesity, in almost all circumstances, is most likely a disorder of the brain,\u201d said Casey Halpern, MD, an associate professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania. \u201cWhat these individuals need is not simply more willpower, but the therapeutic equivalent of an electrician that can make right these connections inside their brain.\u201d<\/p>\n

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