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BRAIN'S APPETITE STIMULANT MAY BE KEY TO WEIGHT GAIN.


Byline: Theresa Tamkins Medical Tribune News Service

In yet another discovery that may help scientists unravel the mystery of appetite, eating and obesity, diabetes researchers have found a brain chemical that appears to regulate feeding and play a role in weight gain - this time by stimulating appetite.

A team from the Joslin Diabetes Center and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston reported that the compound, called melanin melanin /mel·a·nin/ (mel´ah-nin) any of several closely related dark pigments of the skin, hair, choroid coat of the eye, substantia nigra, and various tumors, produced by polymerization of oxidation products of tyrosine and dihydroxyphenol compounds.-concentrating hormone (MCH MCH - Machine Check Handler
MCH - Malicious Call Hold
MCH - Marlette Community Hospital (Michigan)
MCH - Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless
MCH - Master of Surgery
MCH - Maternal and Child Health
MCH - Mean Cell Hemoglobin
MCH - Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin
MCH - Medical Center Hospital (Odessa, TX)
MCH - Memory and Command Handler
MCH - Memory Channel Hub
MCH - Memory Controller Hub (Intel)
MCH - Methylcyclohexane
), is found in higher levels in the brains of obese mice than in lean mice.

When MCH was injected into normal mice, the animals consumed about twice as many calories as usual, said lead study author Dr. Eleftheria Maratos-Flier.

Last year, the biggest news in obesity research was the isolation of a natural hormone - called leptin - that suppresses appetite by interacting with receptors in the brain.

While the function of MCH is unknown, it is produced in the hypothalamus hypo·tha·lamic (-th-lm, the area of the brain that is thought to be the control center for weight regulation, and therefore must be viewed as a "potentially important" regulator of weight gain, Maratos-Flier noted in the report, published in the journal Nature.

"In theory, if this peptide turned out to have a powerful effect on food intake in other studies, blocking the effect with drugs may reduce food intake," said Dr. Rudolph Leibel, head of the human behavior and metabolism laboratory at the Rockefeller University Rockefeller University, philanthropic organization in New York City, founded 1901 as the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research by John D. Rockefeller for furthering medical science and its allied subjects and to make knowledge of these subjects available to the public. Many millions of dollars allocated to the institute by its founder and members of his family enabled it to develop into one of the principal research organizations in the United States. in New York. "Or it may be used to increase food intake in people who are anorexic an·o·rex·ic (n-rk."

While last year's discovery of leptin at first was thought to be a "magic bullet mag·ic bullet (mjk)
n.
" that could combat obesity, "what we are now seeing is the discovery of a whole series of additional proteins or genes that influence food intake and metabolism in very complex ways," he said.
COPYRIGHT 1996 Daily News
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 1996, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Title Annotation:L.A. LIFE
Publication:Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)
Date:Mar 21, 1996
Words:295
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