Appetite

Leptin is a hormone that is derived from fat tissues which provides information to the brain about energy stores. Animals, including humans, that lack leptin display substantial hyperphagia that can be reversed with leptin treatment. How do higher brain centers interpret the messages that leptin communicates? How might this kind of information impact PWS, where hyperphagia is prominent and may be life threatening?

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Studies of the neural circuitry of food regulation has provided ample evidence that the hypothalamus (a structure the size of four peas which is suspended above the pituitary gland in the middle of the brain) plays a critical role in the hyperphagia seen in PWS. The hypothalamus is known to receive input from many other areas of the brain, and neuroimaging studies have begun to flesh out the precise connections of food-related information transfer in the brain, particularly in PWS.
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Individuals with PWS are, in many ways, perfect subjects for studying the effectiveness of candidate obesity drugs. [ Read more . . . ]

A new article sheds a little bit of light on the latest player in obesity – the FTO gene (the fat-mass and obesity-associated gene). [ Read more . . . ]

Zebrafish are hot - these little fish are all the rage in the research world these days. They develop very quickly (embryo to fish in just a couple of days) and scientists are developing better ways to manipulate their genes and use them to study human disorders. Obviously, fish are pretty different than humans, but surprisingly many pathways are well conserved across the species. [ Read more . . . ]

Some years ago, the dietary pill Fen-Phen was a fairly widely used, effective drug for weight loss, and was even reported to be helpful in PWS in a small clinical trial: Selikowitz M, et al. [ Read more . . . ]

Here’s an article of interest from WebMD:

Do Bigger Portions Lead to Bigger Kids?

http://aolsvc.health.webmd.aol.com/content/Article/107/108575.htm

Modafinil (Provigil) has been suggested as a potential wake-promoting drug that might be helpful in PWS. Interestingly, this article (although a very small study) showed that individuals taking modafinil consumed less food. Compared to amphetamine, which also increases wakefulness and decreases appetite, modafinil did not cause increased heart rate at high doses.
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A new article out in the Journal of Clinical Investigation identifies a new role for the enzyme CPT-1 in weight regulation; the link and a commentary are below. [ Read more . . . ]