| Popis: |
A number of novel pathways and mediators controlling food intake, body weight, and energy expenditure have been identified using molecular and genetic techniques [1, 2]. It is now accepted that body weight is regulated by a feedback loop, in which peripheral signals from the gut, liver, and fat provide nutritional information via hormones and afferent vagal input to integrated centres in the brainstem and the hypothalamus. At these sites, monoaminergic and peptidergic neurons interact to integrate and transduce the incoming signals, thereby modulating food intake [2]. In this type of regulation, orexigenic and anorexigenic neuromediators are in a constant balance to maintain homeostasis. In several clinical diseases, ranging from inflammatory conditions such as obesity to cancer, an imbalance among these neuromediators occurs, leading, respectively, to either hyperphagia, with an increase in food intake, or to anorexia, with a decrease in food intake [3, 4]. |
