56. Metabolism, Growth and Appetite (HT) Flashcards
Give some experimental evidence relating to The Biggest Loser.
[EXTRA]
(Fothergill, 2016):
- Investigated 14 participants of the TV program “The Biggest Loser”
- 13 of these participants had regained weight in the 6 years after the competition
- The participants had a greater decrease in the resting metabolic rate (RMR) than would be predicted based on just the changes in body composition.
- This is evidence for the existence of “metabolic adaptation”, which is an evolutionary adaptation to prevent weight loss.
However, this is a controversial topic. There are uncertainty as to how persistent metabolic adaptation is, what factors increase metabolic adaptation and who is affected most.
Give some experimental evidence for the best rate for weight loss.
[EXTRA]
(Purcell, 2014):
- It is often stated that you are more likely to maintain lost weight if you lose the weight slowly.
- However, this study showed that te rate of weight loss does not affect the proportion of weight regained within 144 weeks.
- This goes against many current dietary guidelines.
What percentage of BMI is determined by genetics?
40% to 70%
Where is leptin secreted?
Adipose tissue
What is the role of leptin and when is it secreted?
- Leptin leads to decreased appetite
- Leptin production increases exponentially with body fat mass, so it acts as direct feedback, maintaining weight within a narrow range
- However, leptin levels can also be dissociated from this relationship by various events, such as starvation
Give some experimental evidence surrounding the discovery of leptin.
[EXTRA]
(Coleman, 1973):
- Studied two types of overweight mice, known as ob/ob (for obese) and db/db (for diabetic)
- Used a technique known as parabiosis, which involves surgically joining two mice’s circulatory systems
- Parabiosis of an ob/ob mouse and normal mouse caused the ob/ob mouse to lose weight
- Parabiosis of a db/db mouse and normal mouse caused the normal mouse to stop eating and become cachexic
- Parabiosis of an ob/ob mouse and db/db mouse caused the ob/ob mouse to lose weight
- These results suggest the existence of a signal that controls adipocity that was overproduced by the db/db mouse but not produced at all by the ob/ob mouse -> This was confirmed to be leptin
(Zhang, 1994):
- Positionally cloned the mouse obesity gene and its homologue (leptin) in humans
Give some clinical relevance for leptin.
[EXTRA]
(Montague, 1997):
- Congenital leptin deficiency is associated with severe early-onset obesity in humans.
(Farooqi, 1999):
- Recombinant leptin therapy in children with congenital leptin deficiency leads to significant weight loss.
(Brown, 2018):
- Leptin can be used to reverse the metabolic syndrome that is seen in generalised lipodystrophy (lack of adipocytes). This is because these patients do not produce leptin since they do not have much adipose tissue. Improvements in insulin sensitivity are independent of food intake.
How did the discovery of leptin change understanding of adipose tissue?
[IMPORTANT]
It lead to the idea that adipose was an endocrine organ involved in energy homeostasis via the secretion of leptin.
How does leptin affect apetite?
- It reduces appetite because it regulates the activity of first order neurons in the arcuate nucleus.
- It reduces firing of AgRP neurons and increases firing of POMC neurons.
What is some evidence for leptin not only having an effect on weight loss by suppressing food intake?
(Levin, 1996):
- Leptin-deficient mice that were treated with leptin were compared to pair-fed mice (i.e. where mice that are leptin-deficient but not treated are given as much food as those treated with leptin eat)
- This showed that leptin did not only cause weight loss via reducing appetite
How does leptin affect the body apart from reducing appetite?
Leptin is in a neuroendocrine loop with sympathetic nerves:
- Leptin from adipose tissue feeds back to the brain
- This drives sympathetic nerve activity, which leads to release of noradrenaline onto the adipose tissues
- In turn, this leads to increased lipolysis and thermogenesis
Why do high levels of leptin in obesity not lead to weight loss? And why can we not treat obesity by administering more leptin to suppress appetite? Give some experimental evidence.
- Hyperleptinemia causes leptin resistance, perhaps because the levels get so high that a desensitisation threshold is reached (LeDuc, 2019).
- It might instead be advantageous to instead reduce the leptin levels, so that the sensitivity is increased.
- (Zhao, 2019) found that using antibodies against leptin in obese individuals helps to increase sensitivity to leptin and thus return to a lower body weight.
Apart from improving leptin sensitivity, how can obesity be treated with relevance to leptin?
The action of efferent sympathetic nerves (usually activated by leptin) that stimulate lipolysis and thermogenesis may be amplified using sympathofacilitators. These do not affect the brain, so they have cardioprotective effects.
What are some consequences of obesity?
Increased risk of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, some cancers, obstructive sleep apnoea, hepatic steatosis, biliary disease, neurodegeneration, osteoarthritis.
What are the differences between visceral and subcutaneous fat?
[IMPORTANT]
Visceral fat is more unhealthy than subcutaneous fat, which gives rise to the idea of metabolically “healthy” obesity, where the majority of the fat is not centrally located.
How does metabolically healthy obesity compare with being normal weight?
- Being metabolically healthy obese does not increase your risk of hypertension, type 2 diabetes or dyslipidemia
- However, there is still an increased risk of cardiovascular disease
Give some experimental evidence for the importance of brown adipose tissue.
[EXTRA?]
(Bercher, 2021):
- Brown adipose is associated with cardiometabolic health
- Of the over 52,000 participants, individuals with detectable brown fat were less likely than their peers to suffer cardiac and metabolic conditions (such as type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease)
- Brown adipose tissue can be detected in PET scans using 2-deoxyglucose as a marker
(Hanssen, 2015):
- Found that short-term cold acclimation improves insulin sensitivity in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus
- This is thought to be due to changes in brown adipose tissue activity
- There are questions about whether this is a sustainable strategy in the longer term, since the patient must remain in a room at around 15*C and there is uncertainty about whether the effect is sustained
What are the differences between subcutaneous and visceral fat?
[IMPORTANT]
Subcutaneous fat:
- Contains beige adipocytes (Similar to brown adipocytes. Made by browning of white adipocytes.)
- Thermogenic function
- Protects from metabolic diseases
Visceral fat:
- Loss of beige adipocyte function
- Inflammatory action
- Increases risk of metabolic diseases
How can visceral and subcutaneous fat be exchanged between?
- Various factors can control the transition between the two types of fat
- PRDM16 activates beige adipocytes, prompting them to burn calories rather than store them.
- In PRDM16 KO mice develop obesity, insulin resistance, and fatty liver as beige adipocytes no longer functioned properly.
- Subcutaneous fat “visceralizes”, both at molecular and morphological levels
Describe the concept of browning.
- Adipose tissue is a dynamic tissue that can respond to environmental stimuli.
- Browning is the increase in the number of brown adipocyte-like cells, named beige adipocytes, upon sustained cold exposure or direct β-adrenergic activation.
- These beige adipocytes are functionally similar to classic brown adipocytes, since they have many mitochondria, multilocular lipid droplets and express UCP1.
- This is relevant because it is a target for treatment of obesity.
- Subcutaneous fat appears to show more browning than visceral fat, so it is considered the healthier type of fat.
How does 2,4-dinitrophenol work? Why is it not used to treat obesity anymore?
[EXTRA]
- It is a protonophore, so it allows protons to bypass the ATP synthatase, dissipating the proton gradient and making ATP synthesis less efficient.
- It is no longer used because it is difficult to control the thermogenic effect.
Give some experimental evidence surrounding new drugs to be created for treating obesity.
[EXTRA?]
Saxenda:
- One of the most recently approved drugs that effectively treats obesity
- It is a derivative of Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which is one of the gut hormones regulating food intake & glucose homeostasis
- It has only been approved for the treatment of diabetes, but many of these patients suffer from obesity as a co-morbidity so it is useful in treating the obesity too
(Müller, 2018):
- Various peptides derived from gut peptides can be combined into a chimeric structure
- This produces a structure that can act as an agonist at multiple sites receptors
- A GLP-1/GIP/Glucagon triagonist would be most effective at reducing body weight and glycaemic control
Give some experimental evidence for the potential of GLP-1 derivatives in treating diabetes.
[EXTRA]
Gastric bypass surgery in obese individuals with T2 diabetes tends to lead to some recovery from diabetes before weight loss is observed. This is seen alongside an increase in GLP-1, which suggests that this may be involved in the return to normal insulin sensitivity.
How does metformin lead to weight loss?
[EXTRA?]
- Metformin is usually used to treat diabetes, but it also often leads to weight loss
- The mechanism of action is not known, but the metformin leads to increases in GDF15.
- The effects of metformin on weight are lost in a GDF15 KO mouse.
- GDF15 agonises GFRAL in brainstem to mediate anorexia.
What are some genetic obesity syndromes?
[EXTRA]
At least 10% of children with severe obesity have chromosomal abnormalities, nonsense mutations, or missense mutations that strongly determine obesity.
Clinically, what does POMC deficiency cause?
[EXTRA]
Severe early-onset obesity, adrenal insufficiency and red hair.
What does melanocortin receptor 4 deficiency cause?
[EXTRA]
Hyperphagia, accelerated linear growth, increased bone density, increased adipose and lean tissue mass
What does Prohormone Convertase-1 (PC1) Deficiency cause?
[EXTRA]
Defective prohormone processing:
- Abnormal glucose homeostasis
- Very low insulin levels
- Elevated plasma proinsulin and pro-POMC concentrations
- Hypogonadotrophic
- Hypogonadism
- Hypocortisolism
Downregulation of PC1 is also seen in Prader-Willi syndrome.
What does Bardet–Biedl syndrome (BBS) cause?
[EXTRA]
- Obesity, retinitis pigmentosa, polydactyly, hypogonadism, and kidney failure
- It is a ciliopathic disorder, but it is still unclear how the cilia are involved in obesity
Describe the importance of inflammation in obesity.
[IMPORTANT]
- Obesity is typically characterised by chronic inflammation in the adipose tissue
- This involves recruitments of macrophages that secrete TNFα
- This TNFα blocks insulin signalling, which leads to insulin resistance
- Experimentally, removal of TNFα function leads to return of insulin sensitivity but not resolution of obesity
- Clinically, Infliximab is an anti-TNFα neutralizing antibody, but it does not ameliorate human obesity.