The abundance of tasty foods rich in fat or sugar has led to more people living long lives, but it has also caused an epidemic of diseases associated with obesity that generates poor health and puts to the test the resistance of health systems. One of the ways to stop this health crisis is to study what happens in the brain when we are exposed to certain foods. This week, a team led by Michiru Hirasawa of Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, publishes a job at the magazine PNAS in which they try to understand the relationship between inflammation of the hypothalamus, a part of the brain that regulates energy balance and our feeling of hunger, and the consumption of high-fat diets.
