Sunday, January 10, 2016

How we sense hunger? Interview with Zhiying Li.


What tells our body that it needs food?? The answer might lie within the working of a hormone called leptin. The hormone, mostly secreted by fat tissue, works on a small area of the brain, the hypothalamus, to control hunger and satiety. Its decrease leads to over-eating and obesity. Now, Zhiying, a post-doc in Jeffery Friedman's Lab at Rockefeller University, finds that the molecule might have a brother-in-arms for control of such feelings. In her article published in Cell Metabolism, she finds that another peptide hormone, amylin, works in concert with leptin and enhances its effect. Combinational therapy with both amylin and leptin seem to have better effect on controlling obesity. We ring her up and try to find more about this new synergy!


Read the article for yourself:
Hypothalamic Amylin Acts in Concert with Leptin to Regulate Food Intake
Li et al., Cell Metabolism, Dec. 01, 2015.

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