Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0020505 (hyperphagia)
 6,116 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The role of body fat in the control of food intake is considered from the point of view that the oxidation of metabolic fuels generates a signal that governs feeding behavior. According to this perspective, the storage and mobilization of fat affect food intake indirectly by altering fuel oxidation. Hyperphagia during the development of obesity is thus treated as an appropriate response to a primary metabolic defect that causes fuels to be stored rather than oxidized. Evidence is presented that changes in insulin level and the activity of carnitine palmitoyltransferase I modulate feeding by altering the partitioning of fatty acids. The possibility that dietary interactions, acting through these mechanisms, may cause overeating of high-fat diets is discussed. It is proposed that the signal for feeding originates in the liver when both fatty acids and glucose are unavailable for oxidation.
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PMID:Body fat and the metabolic control of food intake. 208 16

Melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) is a cyclic orexigenic peptide expressed in the lateral hypothalamus. Recently, we demonstrated that chronic intracerebroventricular infusion of MCH induced obesity accompanied by sustained hyperphagia in mice. Here, we analyzed the mechanism of MCH-induced obesity by comparing animals fed ad libitum with pair-fed and control animals. Chronic infusion of MCH significantly increased food intake, body weight, white adipose tissue (WAT) mass, and liver mass in ad libitum-fed mice on a moderately high-fat diet. In addition, a significant increase in lipogenic activity was observed in the WAT of the ad libitum-fed group. Although body weight gain was marginal in the pair-fed group, MCH infusion clearly enhanced the lipogenic activity in liver and WAT. Plasma leptin levels were also increased in the pair-fed group. Furthermore, MCH infusion significantly reduced rectal temperatures in the pair-fed group. In support of these findings, mRNA expression of uncoupling protein-1, acyl-CoA oxidase, and carnitine palmitoyltransferase I, which are key molecules involved in thermogenesis and fatty acid oxidation, were reduced in the brown adipose tissue (BAT) of the pair-fed group, suggesting that MCH infusion might reduce BAT functions. We conclude that the activation of MCH neuronal pathways stimulated adiposity, in part resulting from increased lipogenesis in liver and WAT and reduced energy expenditure in BAT. These findings confirm that modulation of energy homeostasis by MCH may play a critical role in the development of obesity.
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PMID:Characterization of MCH-mediated obesity in mice. 1255 98