The brain control of appetite and bodyweight: Is obesity a choice?
It is clear that the cause of obesity is a result of eating more than you burn. It is physics. What is more complex to answer is why some people eat more than others? Differences in our genetic make-up mean some of us are more driven towards food and so eat more than others. We now know that the genetics of body-weight, on which obesity sits on one end of the spectrum, is in actuality the genetics of how our brain controls appetite. In this talk, I will discuss the ‘fat-sensing’ melanocortin pathway, as well as our efforts to map the feeding circuitry in the human brain. In contrast to the prevailing view, body-weight is not a choice. People who are obese are not bad or lazy; rather, they are fighting their biology.
Date:
24 November 2023, 13:00 (Friday, 7th week, Michaelmas 2023)
Venue:
Sherrington Library, off Parks Road OX1 3PT
Speaker:
Professor Giles Yeo (University of Cambridge)
Organising department:
Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics (DPAG)
Organisers:
Dr Mootaz Salman (DPAG, University of Oxford),
Associate Professor Samira Lakhal-Littleton (DPAG, University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address:
communications@dpag.ox.ac.uk
Host:
Professor Ana Domingos (University of Oxford, DPAG)
Part of:
DPAG Head of Department Seminar Series
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Peter Belk
