The global obesity epidemic is well established, and is an important public health issue. There is no doubt that obesity is linked to a broad spectrum of diseases. However, more and more researches have realized that the altered function of certain organ may facilitate or participate in the development of obesity and its comorbidities. For instance, in John I Malone’s review they the insulin resistance of T2DM occurs primarily in the muscles of lean individuals before they become obese. The central nervous system, especially the hypothalamus, has always considered to be the regulation center of food intake and hormonal regulation of energy homeostasis. In turn, obesity may worsen the regularity function of nervous system in several pathway. More and more studies found, there exist several common pathophysiological pathways between mood disorders and obesity. Besides, evidence also found the links between obesity, fatty liver diseases and cardiovascular diseases.
On the other side, clinical evidence indicates that bariatric surgery is currently the only long-term effective treatment for severe obesity, which can significantly and sustainably reducing body weight. However, a portion of subjects still experience suboptimal weight loss after surgery. Based on the previous findings, we hypothesized that a serious alteration of the body systems will occur in the development of obesity and the alteration may related to the dysregulated central nervous system in obese patients. Thus, we plan to combine the MR imaging, biological data and epidemiological data thoroughly from UK Biobank, thus to investigate the regulating mechanisms of central nervous system on development of obesity and its comorbidities and conversely how the obesity accelerates the brain aging process. The result will help us to prove our hypothesis and further investigation of underlying mechanisms.
Project duration: This research project is estimated to take up to36 months.
Public health implication: We hope our research could deeply reveal the mechanisms of obesity. Once the regulating mechanisms of central nervous system on obesity could be explored, the results will greatly promote the diagnosis and treatment in the future.
