"Gut Feelings: How The Gut Tries To Tell The Brain To Stop"
Lecture by Bob Ritter
The National Center for Health Statistics estimates that more than 30 percent of American adults – over 60 million people – are obese. This obese population is at higher risk of developing serious medical conditions, such as heart attack, stroke, diabetes and many cancers. Because obesity cannot develop unless energy intake exceeds energy expenditure, the control of food intake has become an extremely active area of biomedical research. The efforts of Dr. Ritter’s research are focused on determining how the gastrointestinal tract communicates with the brain to produce satiation, a process that terminates food intake.
Dr. Ritter and his collaborators hope that an understanding of the neural and hormonal basis of satiation will enable development of rationale treatments to help people reduce food intake and return to a healthy non-obese body weight. In addition, an understanding of the mechanisms that control food intake may lead to more effective treatment for the loss of appetite that occurs during infection, anorexia and cancer therapies.