High-Fat Diet tagged posts

How Obesity Dismantles our Mitochondria: Study reveals Key Mechanism behind Obesity-related Metabolic Dysfunction

mitochondria
These colored streaks are mitochondrial networks within fat cells. Researchers from UC San Diego discovered that a high-fat diet dismantles mitochondria, resulting in weight gain. Photo credit: UC San Diego Health Sciences

The number of people with obesity has nearly tripled since 1975, resulting in a worldwide epidemic. While lifestyle factors like diet and exercise play a role in the development and progression of obesity, scientists have come to understand that obesity is also associated with intrinsic metabolic abnormalities.

Now, researchers from University of California San Diego School of Medicine have shed new light on how obesity affects our mitochondria, the all-important energy-producing structures of our cells.

In a study published in Nature Metabolism, the researcher...

Read More

Mom’s Dietary Fat Rewires Male and Female Brains Differently

A microglia (in magenta) from a male mouse born to a mom on a high-fat diet, which sequesters more brain serotonin (in green) than males with mom’s eating a typical lab diet. (Bilbo Lab)
A microglia (in magenta) from a male mouse born to a mom on a high-fat diet, which sequesters more brain serotonin (in green) than males with mom’s eating a typical lab diet. (Bilbo Lab)

Excess fat triggers immune cells to overeat serotonin in the brain of developing male mice, leading to depression-like behavior. More than half of all women in the United States are overweight or obese when they become pregnant. While being or becoming overweight during pregnancy can have potential health risks for moms, there are also hints that it may tip the scales for their kids to develop psychiatric disorders like autism or depression, which often affects one gender more than the other.

What hasn’t been understood however is how the accumulation of fat tissue in mom might signal through the ...

Read More

Study reveals missing Link between High-Fat Diet, Microbiota and Heart Disease

Mariana Byndloss, DVM, PhD, Woongjae Yoo, PhD, and colleagues are studying how a high-fat diet may contribute to heart disease. (Photo taken prior to revised masking guidelines.)
Mariana Byndloss, DVM, PhD, Woongjae Yoo, PhD, and colleagues are studying how a high-fat diet contributes to heart disease. (photo by Donn Jones, taken prior to revised masking guidelines)

A high-fat diet disrupts the biology of the gut’s inner lining and its microbial communities — and promotes the production of a metabolite that may contribute to heart disease, according to a study published Aug. 13 in the journal Science.

The discoveries in animal models support a key role for the intestines and microbiota in the development of cardiovascular disease, said Mariana Byndloss, DVM, PhD, assistant professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

The intestines, she noted, have been relatively understudied by scientists seeking to unders...

Read More