Encouraging patients to adhere to a healthy diet could be key to preventing damage to brain cells that control body weight. A high fat diet has been associated with causing injury to neurons that help to control body weight, in a study at the University of Washington. The experiment using rat subjects showed that a high fat diet resulted in an inflamed hypothalamus, which is responsible for controlling body weight.
Findings could prove particularly interesting to employees in dieticians jobs, who may decide to refer patients on for diagnosis by a neurologist. Lead study author Joshua Thaler suggested that the research could be used to develop new treatments.
"If new medicines can be designed that limit neuron injury during overeating, they may be effective in combating the obesity epidemic," he said. Meanwhile, recent research carried out at the Oregon Health and Science University indicated that a high-fat diet during pregnancy increases the risk of still birth, whether the mother is obese or slender.