New Hampshire Health News Digest

Protein behind overeating identified -Health/Science-The Times of India WASHINGTON: Researchers, for the first time, have demonstrated in mice that a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is critical in managing satiety, and is the main cause behind obesity and overeating. The study, led by Maribel Rios, PhD, and assistant professor of neuroscience at the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston and colleagues, revealed that it is the lack of BDNF that is responsible for triggering overeating and obesity. Researchers showed that the mice in which the BDNF gene was deleted in two of the primary appetite-regulating regions of the brain ate more and became significantly heavier than their counterparts. "Prior to this study, we knew that the global lack of BDNF and/or its receptor during development leads to overeating and obesity in young mice. However, it remained unclear and controversial whether BDNF mediate...

Information On Addictions Articles and News: Brain Imaging And Genetic Studies Link Thinking Patterns To Addiction Boettiger recruited 24 subjects:19 provided fMRI data, 9 were recovering alcoholics in abstinence and 10 had no history of substance abuse. Another five were included in the genotyping analysis. At the fMRI research facility at the University of California, Berkeley, financial decision tasks measured rational thinking and impulsivity. Sober alcoholics chose the "now" reward almost three times more often than the control group, reflecting more impulsive behavior. While decisions were being made, the imaging detected activity in the posterior parietal cortex, the dorsal prefrontal cortex, the anterior temporal lobe and the orbital frontal cortex. People who sustain damage to the orbital frontal cortex generally suffer impaired judgment, manage money poorly and act impulsively, the scientists noted. The study revealed reduced activity in the orbital frontal cortex i...

People addicted to alcohol more “impulsive” in their decision-making | TopNews Health “Our data suggest there may be a cognitive difference in people with addictions. Their brains may not fully process the long-term consequences of their choices. They may compute information less efficiently,” said Boettiger, who led the study as a scientist at UCSF's Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center. “What’s exciting about this study is that it suggests a new approach to therapy. We might prescribe medications, such as those used to treat Parkinson’s or early Alzheimer’s disease, or tailor cognitive therapy to improve executive function,” she added. Dr. Howard Fields, the senior author of the study, said that the newly found link involving the gene, impulsive behaviour and brain activity suggests that raising dopamine levels may be an effective treatment for addiction. “I am very excited about these results because of their clinical implications. The genetic findings raise the hopeful possi...

Addiction changes brain functions-Health/Science-The Times of India LONDON: Is addiction a brain disease? Yes, if researchers are to be believed, because it changes the way the brain functions. A team of international researchers has carried out a study and found that alcoholics and drug addicts are naturally more impulsive when compared to other normal people, The Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday. According to lead researcher Charlotte Boettiger of the University of North Carolina, "Their (the addicts') brains may not fully process the long-term consequences of their choices." The researchers came to the conclusion after carrying out brain scans on nine sober recovering alcoholics. The participants were given financial decision tasks that allowed them to choose “less money now” or “more money later”. The addicts chose the "now" reward almost three times as often. In fact, the team found that they had less activity in the orbital frontal cortex - the part ...

New mechanism explains glucose effect on wakefulness New mechanism explains glucose effect on wakefulness One of the body's basic survival mechanisms is the neural machinery that triggers the hungry brain to the alertness needed for seeking food. That same machinery swings the other way after a hearty meal, as exemplified by the long and honored custom of the siesta. However, scientists have understood little about how the basic energy molecule, glucose, regulates such wakefulness and other energy-related behaviors. Now, in an article in the June 1, 2006, Neuron, Denis Burdakov of the University of Manchester and his colleagues have pinpointed how glucose inhibits neurons that are key to regulating wakefulness. In the process, they have discovered a role for a class of potassium ion channels whose role has remained largely unknown. Such ion channels are porelike proteins in the cell membrane that affect cellular responses by controlling the flow of potassium into the cell. The rese...

Sugars: hedonic aspects, neuroregulation, and energy balance -- Levine et al. 78 (4): 834S -- American Journal of Clinical Nutrition .. ABSTRACT The prevalence of obesity has increased dramatically in recent years in the United States, with similar patterns seen in several other countries. Although there are several potential explanations for this dramatic increase in obesity, dietary influences are a contributing factor. An inverse correlation between dietary sugar intake and body mass index has been reported, suggesting beneficial effects of carbohydrate intake on body mass index. In this review we discuss how sugars interact with regulatory neurochemicals in the brain to affect both energy intake and energy expenditure. These neurochemicals appear to be involved in dietary selection, and sugars and palatable substances affect neurochemical changes in the brain. For example, rats that drink sucrose solutions for 3 wk have major changes in neuronal activity in the limbic area of the b...

PCOS Diet / Cushing's Help and Support Low Carbohydrate PCOS Diets: Hype, Hoax or Cure? Tuesday, January 18, 2000; Page HE15 It sounds too good to be true, but many women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) say that when they eat more vegetables and meats and less bread and fruit, they start ovulating and lose weight. As a result, a growing number of nutritionists and a few physicians are advocating so-called insulin-sensitizing diets, which are similar to the "protein power" regimes being promoted in many best-selling books. When a healthy person eats a carbohydrate, insulin levels rise to break down the resulting sugar in the blood. But women with PCOS are insulin-resistant, meaning they have defective cells that hamper this metabolism and increase the risk of diabetes. In addition, to try to compensate for the defect, their bodies produce more and more insulin, which can damage the insulin-producing system. To make matters worse, this excess of insulin can trigger ...

Insulin Resistance Insulin Resistance Have you been diagnosed with clinical depression? Heart disease? Type II, or adult, diabetes? Narcolepsy? Are you, or do you think you might be, an alcoholic? Do you gain weight around your middle in spite of faithfully dieting? Are you unable to lose weight? Does your child have ADHD? If you have any one of these symptoms, I wrote this article for you. Believe it or not, the same thing can cause all of the above symptoms. I am not a medical professional. I am not a nutritionist. The conclusions I have drawn from my own experience and observations are not rocket science. A diagnosis of clinical depression is as ordinary as the common cold today. Prescriptions for Prozac, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, etc., are written every day. Genuine clinical depression is a very serious condition caused by serotonin levels in the brain. I am not certain, however, that every diagnosis of depression is the real thing. My guess is that about 10 percent of the people taking ...

Sleepiness mostly due to carbs, not turkey | Deseret News (Salt Lake City) | Find Articles at BNET.com Meanwhile, a new area of research shows that another brain chemical called orexin may play a key role in the drowsiness cycle, regardless of whether any turkey is on the plate. Scientists have long known that when people are hungry, they are more alert. In prehistoric times, that was probably a signal for people to get off their duffs and start stalking the latest meal, as opposed to simply taking a short hike to the refrigerator. Recent studies have shown that animals' brains secrete orexin when they are hungry and their baseline metabolism is low. Conversely, after a meal, when baseline metabolism rises and the animal gets sleepy, the output of orexin drops off.

Foods and Your Moods :: Food and Nutrition Ever wonder why certain meals make you feel great, while others leave you feeling sluggish and ready to nap? The answer lies within the way that nutrients from these foods interact with brain chemicals to either enhance our levels of alertness and motivation or to make us sleepy. Nutritionists have always known that meals comprised primarily of improper carbohydrates (such as fibre-void white bread) can cause us to feel less than energetic, while meals high in protein can help us feel alert. Research in the early ’80s performed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) showed that carbohydrates help elevate levels of a calming brain chemical called serotonin, the precursor to melatonin, also known as the hormone of sleep. This research team also discovered that one of the main reasons we crave carbohydrates is to compensate for a reduction in serotonin levels. Carbohydrates elevate brain serotonin by stimulating insulin levels, which ...

Transient Tic Disorder - Causes, Symptoms and Treatment A large kindred affected by TS and identified two family members with TTD who are very likely obligate carriers of the TS gene. These tics are more noticeable during stressful, fatiguing or emotional times. Tics appear to get worse with emotional stress and do not occur during sleep. Tics increase in frequency and severity with stress, during relaxation after physical exercise, idleness, fatigue, exposure to heat, and use of dopaminergic drugs, such as steroids, caffeine, and CNS stimulants. Tics usually diminish with performance of engaging mental or physical activities or with consumption of marijuana, alcohol or nicotine. Some people can control the tic urges so that they only tic in the privacy of a safe place, such as their home. Tics are severe to cause problems in school or occupational functioning, then behavioral techniques are recommended. Tics may be precipitated in with ADHD when they are given methylphenidate (Ritalin...

Methylphenidate and Clonidine Help Children With ADHD and Tics For decades, doctors who have treated children with both attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and tics have been warned not to prescribe methylphenidate (Ritalin), the most common drug for ADHD, because of a concern that it would make the tics worse. Now, the first randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial of methylphenidate and another drug, clonidine (Catapres), has found that in fact these drugs do not adversely affect tics. The researchers also found that a combination of the drugs is more effective than either drug alone. For decades, doctors who have treated children with both attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and tics have been warned not to prescribe methylphenidate (Ritalin), the most common drug for ADHD, because of a concern that it would make the tics worse. Now, the first randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial of methylphenidate and another drug, clonidine (Catapres), has fou...

fasting.pdf (application/pdf Object) Summary Anecdotal evidence links the initial phase of fasting or a low-carbohydrate diet with feelings of well-being and mild euphoria. These feelings have often been attributed to ketosis, the production of ketone bodies which can replace glucose as an energy source for the brain. One of these ketone bodies, b-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), is an isomer of the notorious drug of abuse, GHB (c-hydroxybutyrate). GHB is also of interest in relation to its potential as a treatment for alcohol and opiate dependence and narcolepsy-associated cataplexy. Here I hypothesize that, the mild euphoria often noted with fasting or low-carbohydrate diets may be due to shared actions of BHB and GHB on the brain. Specifically, I propose that BHB, like GHB, induces mild euphoria by being a weak partial agonist for GABA B receptors. I outline several approaches that would test the hypothesis, including receptor binding studies in cultured cells, perception studies in trained r...

Unconventional Brain Circuits Offer Clues To Insomnia-obesity Connection : Unconventional wiring of the brain circuits that govern sleep and waking might explain the prevalence of insomnia and the condition's association with obesity, according to new work published in the April issue of Cell Metabolism. Characterized by a chronic inability to fall asleep or remain sleeping, insomnia is estimated to affect one in every eight Americans. The researchers found that so-called hypocretin neurons--having important roles in both arousal and appetite--lack the ability of most neurons to filter "noise" from signal, reported Tamas Horvath and Xiao-Bing Gao of Yale University School of Medicine. The neurons also rapidly reorganize themselves, becoming even more excitable, in response to stresses such as food deprivation, they found. "The cell bodies of most neurons act as a filter," sorting through a multitude of signals to eliminate noise and generate an appropriate resp...

Neurotransmitter Orexin Associated With Pleasure And Reward Pathways In The Brain Neurotransmitter Orexin Associated With Pleasure And Reward Pathways In The Brain ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2005) — Philadelphia, PA -- Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered that the recently identified neurotransmitter orexin (also known as hypocretin) influences reward processing by activating neurons in the lateral hypothalamus region of the brain. By identifying the relationship between orexin neurons and behaviors associated with reward seeking, drug relapse, and addiction, researchers hope to find new treatments for drug addiction. […] Previous studies have linked orexin activity to sleep and arousal (wakefulness), as well as feeding and appetite. Anatomical studies have shown that orexin neurons extend into the brain regions associated with reward pathways, including the ventral tagmental area and nucleus accumbens. Communication between the lateral hypothala...