Although scientists have long thought that cholesterol levels in the body were controlled solely by diet and liver production, a new study lead by a University of Cincinnati researcher has discovered that the brain also actively controls cholesterol levels.
The researchers of the study published their results in the journal Nature Neuroscience. It is entitled “Melanocortin signaling in the CNS directly regulates circulating cholesterol.”
The researchers taking part in the study include U.S. neuroendocrinologist and physiologist Matthias H. Tschöp, who was the lead researcher in the study.
Dr. Tschöp (also spelled Tschoep), an obesity researcher, is associated with the Metabolic Diseases Institute, Division of Endocrinology, Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry, at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A.
Their study involved mice, but in the future they hope to replicate the experiment in humans.
The researchers found that a hunger hormone in the brain controls cholesterol that travels in the bloodstream of the body.
This hunger hormone, called ghrelin, caused high levels of blood cholesterol if increased levels of ghrelin was found.
Ghrelin is a hormone produced primarily by P/D1 cells, which line the fundus of the human stomach and epsilon cells of the pancreas. The hormone stimulates hungerr.
Dr. Tschoep stated within the BBC News article “Brain regulates cholesterol in blood, study suggests” that: "We have long thought that cholesterol is exclusively regulated through dietary absorption or synthesis and secretion by the liver.”
Page two continues with another comment from Dr. Tschoep, along with more specifics about the brain and its role in cholesterol control.
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