Genetic risk of developing obesity is driven by variants that affect the brain — ScienceDaily
Over the past decade, scientists have identified hundreds of different genetic variants that increase a person’s risk of developing obesity. But a lot of work remains to understand how these variants translate into obesity. Now scientists at the University of Copenhagen have identified populations of cells in the body that play a role in the development of the disease — and they are all in the brain.
“Our results provide evidence that biological processes outside the traditional organs investigated in obesity research, such as fat cells, play a key role in human obesity,” says Associate Professor Tune H Pers from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR), at the University of Copenhagen, who published his team’s findings in the internationally-recognized journal eLife.
“We identified cell types in the brain that regulate memory, behavior and processing of sensory information that are involved in the development of the