Want to eat for science? Recruiting starts this month for the first test in humans of whether higher-caloric diets spur MRI-detectable inflammation in the hypothalamus, the brain structure that regulates body weight.
Researchers already know that a “highly energetic” diet causes mice to develop inflammation in this brain region, and that these cellular-level inflammatory changes precede weight gain, said Dr. Ellen Schur, who directs the University of Washington’s Nutrition and Obesity Research Center.
“We think that this inflammation is part of the pathway that promotes energy storage and weight gain,” said Schur, a professor of medicine at the UW School of Medicine.
