Abdominal fat hormone promotes more abdominal fat

April 21, 2008 | Source: KurzweilAI

University of Western Ontario researchers have found that abdominal fat makes a hormone that both stimulates hunger and increases the number of fat cells, in a potentially vicious cycle.

It was previously thought that only the brain made Neuropeptide Y (NPY), the most potent appetite-stimulating hormone known, but in obese rats, NPY was produced locally by abdominal fat. NPY stimulates the replication of fat cell precursor cells, which then change into fat cells.

University of Western Ontario News Release