Brain Proteins Regulate Body Weight

Up to 50%–75% of the variation in body mass index, or BMI, in the community, may be caused by genetic factors. Researchers from Université Laval and the Quebec Heart and Lung Institute Research Center have discovered 60 distinct proteins expressed in the brain that may be important regulators of body weight by studying the genomes of more than 800,000 individuals of European ancestry.

This study explored the link between genetic regions associated with body weight and the proteins expressed in the brain. “Previous study showed that hundreds of genetic regions influence body weight. In most cases, the function of these genes remains unknown. Our study reports that about 60 of these genes encode proteins that could influence body weight via their expression in the brain,” says Éloi Gagnon, a doctoral student in clinical and biomedical sciences at the Université Laval Faculty of Medicine and first author of the study published in iScience.

The study’s research team concentrated on a brain region that may affect cognitive functions like memory and decision-making as well as food reward sensitivity, which refers to how enjoyable consuming fatty or sugary food can be. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain, is also believed to play a role in appetite and satiety.

The team’s findings are consistent with the idea that the brain is a key component of controlling bodily weight. This finding might help to explain why people’s BMIs differ so widely.

The study’s lead author, Benoît Arsenault, a professor at the Université Laval Faculty of Medicine and a researcher at the Quebec Heart and Lung Institute, notes that there are still a few misconceptions about how genetic variables affect body weight that are widely held in society.

The study’s lead author, Benoît Arsenault, a professor at the Université Laval Faculty of Medicine and a researcher at the Quebec Heart and Lung Institute, notes that there are still a few misconceptions about how genetic variables affect body weight that are widely held in society.

According to the researchers, the evolving food environment may have influenced food behaviors and energy storage capacity over the last few decades. “Individuals with a genetic predisposition to an elevated body weight have a higher weight than before, whereas individuals who do not have this predisposition were thin before and are still thin today,” adds Professor Arsenault.

The team believes that the biological role of these proteins in various parts of the brain and their contribution to energy homeostasis, i.e., the balance between food intake and energy expenditure, needs to be studied in more detail. Overall, the results of our study support the existence of a potential interaction between the brain proteome and the evolving food environment. This relationship could influence eating behaviors and energy storage,” says Professor Arsenault.

He emphasizes that people with larger bodies are frequently the targets of bias and may endure stigmatization, intimidation, or discrimination. These fatphobia-related phenomena may have an impact on a person’s bodily and mental well-being. The researcher also points out that numerous studies have demonstrated that uncontrollable variables like genetics are responsible for a significant portion of population-wide variation in body weight.

“Weight is not a choice. Neither is it a lifestyle habit. We don’t have elevated body weight because we are lazy or lack willpower. Unconscious neuronal mechanisms are at play. The brain is the one in charge. I hope that the results of this study can partly explain why body weight varies so much from one person to another,” concludes Benoît Arsenault.

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