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IMAGE: Baylor College of Medicine Neuroscientist and Geneticist Benjamin Arenkiel, Ph.D., is the recipient of the 2021 Edith and Peter O Donnell Award in Medicine from TAMEST (The Academy of Medicine, Engineering. view more
Credit: TAMEST (The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas)
HOUSTON - Baylor College of Medicine Neuroscientist and Geneticist Benjamin Arenkiel, Ph.D., is the recipient of the 2021 Edith and Peter O Donnell Award in Medicine from TAMEST (The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas). He was chosen for his breakthrough identification of the brain s neural pathways that are connected to eating disorders, addiction and other neuropsychiatric disorders.
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SILVER SPRING, Md. A new study confirms that treatment with Bimagrumab, an antibody that blocks activin type II receptors and stimulates skeletal muscle growth, is safe and effective for treating excess adiposity and metabolic disturbances of adult patients with obesity and type 2 diabetes. These exciting results suggest that there may be a novel mechanism for achieving weight loss with a profound loss of body fat and an increase in lean mass, along with other metabolic benefits, said Steve Heymsfield, MD, FTOS, past president of The Obesity Society and corresponding author of the study. Heymsfield is professor and director of the Metabolism and Body Composition Laboratory at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La.
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Researchers have shown that the link between physical and mental illness is closer than previously thought. Certain changes in physical health, which are detectable in childhood, are linked with the development of mental illness in adulthood.
The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, used a sample of over 10,000 people to study how insulin levels and body mass index (BMI) in childhood may be linked with depression and psychosis in young adulthood.
They found that persistently high insulin levels from mid-childhood were linked with a higher chance of developing psychosis in adulthood. In addition, they found that an increase in BMI around the onset of puberty, was linked with a higher chance of developing depression in adulthood, particularly in girls. The results were consistent after adjusting for a range of other possible factors.
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You are likely familiar with the serious consequences of anorexia for those who experience it, but you might not be aware that the disorder may not be purely psychological. A recent review from researchers at the University of Oxford in the open-access journal
Frontiers in Psychiatry examines the evidence that gut microbes could play a significant role in anorexia by affecting appetite, weight, and psychiatric issues such as anxiety and compulsive behavior, among others. Intriguingly, the study also examines the potential for microbial treatments for anorexia, but highlights that we are just beginning to understand the complex relationship between gut microbes and disease.
People with anorexia nervosa have a distorted relationship with the dimensions of their body. A study by the team at the Clinic for Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at LWL University Hospital at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) has shown that, in addition to the conscious body image, what is known as the body schema - unconscious body awareness - is also distorted. It normally adapts to the current situation.