Scientists have known for a long time about a link between chronic (慢性的) stress and obesity. But they couldn't find the key factor in the past. Recently researchers at Georgetown University in Washington D. C. made what they call a "perfect advance".
Dr. Zofia Zukowska says, "Thanks to our hard work of the past years, we have actually discovered the exact reason why people get fat when they are stressed and eat a high fat, high sugar diet. And by knowing the reason, we can now deal with obesity." Dr. Zukowska and her colleagues put laboratory mice under the same type of stress they would experience in the wild such as meeting up with a more aggressive and dangerous mouse. They then fed these mice a fast food diet. The mice became fat.
What's more, they found an increased amount of a chemical called neuropeptide Y, or NPY for short, in these mice, which is activated by stress and helps stimulate (刺激) the growth of fat cells. And the fat in mice grew around their middle, just as it does in humans. Middle fat is the most dangerous kind, as it affects the heart and liver, causing heart disease, adding to cholesterol (胆固醇) levels, high blood pressure, and so on. But the researchers found they could block the fat-causing NPY with another chemical, and thus could manipulate obesity effectively.
To their pleasant surprise, NPY seems to work in the human body much like it does in mice. If so, Dr. Zofia Zukowska says it would be a major advance in the battle against obesity, which will be used to cure the patient of the disease caused by stress and obesity. However, the researchers say many more studies need to be done before human trials can begin.
