Despite years of research on diet and exercise treatments, obesity has been a constant trouble leading to the poor health of more than 2 billion people worldwide. But what if we shift the focus for a while from obesity treatment to prevention? Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have shed light on the molecular mechanisms of brain development during early life, which are likely to be a major determinant of obesity risk. The study was conducted in mice in which they focused on the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus , the master regulator of food intake, physical activity, and metabolism.
They observed that the arcuate nucleus undergoes extensive epigenetic maturation during early postnatal life and this period is important for programming of body weight regulation. These postnatal epigenetic changes, occurred earlier in females than in males. The genomic regions targeted for…
