The human body is capable to regulate its weight through a bathroom scale mechanism
Whenever you gain too much fat, your body appears to sense it and take action. A recent study revealed our bodies have an internal weight-monitoring system, which works just like a bathroom scale. As soon as this system detects an abnormal quantity of fat which starts gathering, it sends signals to the brain to start consuming less food. By learning how this works, researchers might develop a new solution to fight obesity.
The internal bathroom scale alerts the brain when it detects too much body fat
When you start gaining weight, you might think your body doesn’t react. However, it turns out it keeps an eye on whatever is happening, and closely monitors the weight you gain just like a bathroom scale. John-Olov Jansson, one of the researchers which contributed to the study, explained how the mechanism works.
“If the body weight tends to increase, a signal is sent to the brain to decrease food intake and keep the body weight constant.”
The discovery was revealed with the help of an experiment performed on fat mice. The animals were fattened artificially by being fed some extra calories. Then, the researchers were amazed to observe how they manage to lose all this extra weight. Instead of affecting their metabolism, the surplus helped regulate their body fat, and improve their blood sugar levels.
Knowing how the mechanism works might help researchers tackle obesity
This is how researchers managed to identify the internal bathroom scale of the body. This mechanism works independently from leptin, the substance known to regulate body fat. However, researchers assumed that this chemical might be used together with this internal regulating system to control obesity.
Researchers say that it might not be excessive eating or body fat that leads to obesity. The real culprit is sedentariness, which might prevent the brain from receiving the warning signals from the internal mechanism. Therefore, if you spend too much time sitting, you might end up obese. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Image Source: Max Pixel
