One of the great handicaps that many will know is known as the rebound effect, a significant weight gain that occurs after completing a strict diet. Now, US researchers have managed to find the key to prevent this from happening.
It is well known to all that one of the worst feelings is the one that occurs when you see how you gain weight or recover the state you were in before a strict weight loss process. diet. You manage to lose 5 kg, for example, but after a few months you regain everything you lost.
This is often seen as a personal failure and can have lasting physical, emotional, and psychological impacts. That’s why the science always comes to help you and Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolic Research and Harvard Medical School now they have identified that the brain influences this aspect.
“People have mainly looked at the short-term effects of dieting. We wanted to see what changes in the brain in the long term.” explains Henning Fenselau, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research, who led the study.
After carrying out several tests in mice, they were able to demonstrate that the nerve cells involved in the sensation of hunger receive stronger signals after a dietso the mice ate significantly more.
They manage to eliminate the rebound effect after evaluating the diet in mice
This discovery by science is really a big first step in the development of drugs to prevent this rebound effect and help maintain a weight body that has already been reduced after the diet.
As for the tests, the researchers put the mice on a diet and assessed which circuits in the brain changed after it. In particular, they examined a group of neurons in the hypothalamus, the AgRP neurons, which are known to control the sensation of hunger.
After this process, they were able to demonstrate that indeed the neural pathways that stimulate AgRP neurons sent increased signals when the mice were on a diet. This change in the brain could be detected long after the diet.
Knowing this effect, researchers managed to selectively inhibit the neural pathways in mice that activate these treacherous neurons, which led to their not gaining as much weight once they finished the diet.
“Long-term, our goal is to find therapies for humans that can help maintain body weight loss after dieting. To accomplish this, we continue to explore how we might block mechanisms that also mediate the strengthening of neural pathways in humans.”they explain.
