Let’s take Monica Dus’ research as an example. She is a molecular biologist at the University of Michigan, and she’s looking into how sugar may possibly affect the brain which normally results into overeating and obesity.
She wants to know why there are people who cannot control themselves. Why is it that you’re now getting that second slice of apple pie? What is so special about that second cupcake? Dus wants to find out the reasons why people do these things. She wants to gain a better understanding about the effects of sugar.
The Interest
Her interest in this research was sparked because of the incident involving her two dogs. Cupcake and Sprinkles got hold of a bag of treats and they couldn’t stop eating. Dus says, “I couldn’t believe that these two tiny, 15-pound animals had huge bellies for three days and they couldn’t stop themselves from eating.”
The Research
She turned to flies and studied them with the hopes of solving the mystery how the brain takes control of the eating habits. The scientist and her lab have a hypothesis. A high diet sugar can cause a definitive change in the brain. The possible result: the brain no longer knows the amount of calories the body is ingesting. There might be molecular changes and this leads to overeating and obesity.
Dus says, “Perhaps it has nothing to do with will, and a lot to do with biochemistry.” She is hopeful that she can find a connection between a high diet sugar and obesity.
The Scientist
The scientist is currently getting attention. She got a grant from the National Institutes of Health for getting the New Innovator award. She received a total of $1.5 million. This is a new grant aimed which has a mission to support “exceptionally creative, early-career investigators who propose innovative, high-impact projects.”
Not only that but she’s also a scholar from the Rita Allen Foundation. This is a program that helps out young scientists to “establish labs and pursue research directions with above-average risk and promise.”
NPR.com interviewed Dus and her colleagues at the University of Michigan. Christina May was helping the research by investigating the individual cells in a fruit fly’s brain.
“I stimulated the fly mouth with sugar, and I recorded from this part of the brain,” May says. There are two groups of flies: the ones on a high-sugar diet and those who ate normally.
The ones that are on the high-sugar diet ended up consuming a lot of calories compared to the group of flies that ate normally. This means that if you consistently have a high sugar content meal, it makes you eat even more.
The Possible Results
Monica Dus is about to prepare her initial results and they’re promising. If she can obtain results that prove there are indeed changes in the brain that may lead to obesity, then it can surely change the methods we have in managing the condition.
The post Molecular Biologist’s Promising Results: What Sugar Does To The Brain appeared first on NUTRITION CLUB CANADA.
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