Human Obesity: Eating-related or Genetic? (original) (raw)
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Obesity –“An excuse or a blame”
Eastern Journal Of Medicine, 2016
A complex feedback control system consisting of a central processing unit which receives afferent signals and generates appropriate efferent stimuli in response controls food intake, satiety and ABSTRACT On a global scale, obesity has reached epidemic proportions and is a major contributor to the global burden of chronic disease and disability. At the moment, more than one billion adults worldwide are overweight and at least 300 million of them are clinically obese. Obesity is a rising worldwide problem affecting both the developed countries as well as the developing nations. Obesity is common but complex and multifactorial disorder with higher heritability. Obesity results because of body fat accumulated over a time because of chronic energy imbalance that is calories consumed exceed calories expended. There are many genetic and environmental factors that influence this balance. Obesity is an important public health problem because it increases the risk of developing diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and some type of cancers. The present article reviews role of genes that are identified in causing obesity.
Obesity A Biobehavioral Point of View
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1990
If you ask an overweight person, "Why are you fat?', you will, almost invariably, get the answer, "Because 1 eat too much." You will get this answer in spite of the fact that of thirteen studies, six find no significant differences in the caloric intake of obese versus nonobese subjects, five report that the obese eat significantly less than the nonobese, and only two report that they eat significantly more. It is hard to overcome this possibly incorrect belief about the cause of obesity when most practicing professionals and certainly every diet book is based on the assumption that excessive caloric intake is at fault. In spite of a failure rate approaching 90 to 95%, we still cling to dietary exhortations in our treatments, and suspect that lack of adherence to our recommendations is responsible for failure. Recent research in the field of biochemistry suggests that several newly discovered factors, as well as others that have been known for years but generally overlooked, may contribute to obesity in a way that is not easily remedied by dieting. Caloric restriction may lead to an adaptive metabolic response that reduces a person's daily energy needs, and to hormone and enzyme changes that lead to an enhanced rate of fat storage following caloric restriction. Adaptive responses may be associated with initial dispositional tendencies for some individuals to be heavier than others, and, together, these adaptive and dispositional tendencies may provide a basis for the continual frustration experienced by millions of persons who repeatedly diet to lose weight. We will review evidence for these adaptive and dispositional tendencies that resist weight loss efforts and then suggest an alternative approach to severe caloric restriction based on data from the Vanderbilt University Weight Management Program.
Neurobiological aspects of obesity: dopamine, serotonin, and imaging
2012
Neurobiological aspects of obesity: dopamiNe, serotoNiN, aNd imagiNg academiscH proefscHrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de universiteit van amsterdam op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. dr. d.c. van den boom ten overstaan van een door het college voor promoties ingestelde commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de agnietenkapel op woensdag 14 november 2012, te 14:00 uur door elisabeth maaike van de giessen geboren te papendrecht promotiecommissie promotores: prof. dr. J. booij prof. dr. W. van den brink co-promotores: prof. dr. f. baas dr. s.e. la fleur overige leden: prof. dr. e. derks prof. dr. b.l.f. van eck-smit prof. dr. a. Jansen prof. dr. t.J. de Vries dr. l. reneman faculteit der geneeskunde Voor Mark geNeral iNtroductioN aNd outliNe of tHesis geNeral iNtroductioN obesity obesity is a condition with an excess proportion of body fat. the most commonly used definition for obesity, as defined by the World Health organization (WHo), is a body mass index (bmi) of > 30 kg/m 2 , whereas a bmi between 25-30 kg/m 2 is defined as overweight, a bmi between 18.5-25 kg/m 2 as normal-weight, and a bmi below 18.5 kg/m 2 as underweight. in addition, the category morbid obesity has been used for people with a bmi > 40 kg/m 2. the growing obesity epidemic is a well-recognized health problem. in the united states, over 30% of the adult population is obese (1). in the Netherlands, this number has doubled from 5.3% in 1981 to 11.4% in 2011 (staline.cbs.nl). the obesity epidemic is not restricted to the Western world (2), but is also increasing in urban areas of some low-and middle-income countries (fig. 1). obesity leads to higher mortality and is a major risk factor for diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, musculoskeletal disorders, major depression and also alzheimer's disease (3;4) the cause of obesity is an energy imbalance, i.e. too much energy intake relative to energy expenditure, leading to accumulation of fat mass in the body. the rise of the availability of palatable food, usually high-caloric food rich in sugars and fat, goes hand in hand with the rise in obesity (5;6) and is considered one of the major causes. still, the question remains why some people become obese and some do not in this high-caloric environment. this is a complex problem involving amongst others genetic factors and gene-environment interactions that influence metabolic and psychological mechanisms for regulation of food intake. Elsmarieke van de Giessen Silja McIlwrick dick Veltman Wim van den Brink Jan Booij in preparation.
Abdominal Imaging, 2012
G. Stanley Hall, the first person to earn a Ph.D. in psychology in the United States, did research on eating behaviors in the nineteenth century (Lepore in The New Yorker, 2011). Research on psychological aspects of obesity accelerated in the 1950s and there has been a great deal done at this point. We review areas of considerable activity and relevance.
Health Psychology Open, 2016
Obesity is a complex and multifaceted public health problem. This commentary reflects on a new theoretical model of obesity (i.e. Homeostatic Theory of Obesity proposed by Marks), and calls for additional research to examine biopsychosocial factors that may be of importance in developing interventions that promote long-term maintenance of weight loss and in developing obesity prevention programs. Furthermore, we discuss the role of socioeconomic factors in obesity and call for interdisciplinary efforts to address obesity risk factors in the interest of public health.