Levin Barry E
Neurology Service, VA Medical Center, 385 Tremont Avenue, East Orange, NJ 07018-1095, USA.
Obesity (Silver Spring). 2006 Aug;14 Suppl 5:192S-196S. doi: 10.1038/oby.2006.307.
The perfect survivor must be able to eat and store as many calories as possible when food is readily available as a buffer against periods of scarcity. He must also reduce energy expenditure when food is scarce and efficiently and accurately restore lost adipose stores when food is again available. These processes are dependent on information relayed to a distributed central network of metabolic sensing neurons through hard-wired neural, metabolic, and hormonal signals from the periphery. These sensing neurons engage neuroendocrine, autonomic, and motor processes involved in arousal, motor activity, and the ingestion, absorption, assimilation, storage, and expenditure of calories. A raised threshold in these metabolic sensors for detecting inhibitory signals from increasing adipose stores allows continued intake of excess calories when they are readily available. Unfortunately, this mechanism for surviving periods of feast and famine predisposes the perfect survivor to become obese when highly palatable, energy dense foods are readily available at low energetic cost. It further assures that raised adipose stores are metabolically defended against attempts to lower them. Thus, effective treatment of obesity will only come with a better understanding of the physiological, metabolic, and neurochemical processes that ensure this defense of an elevated body weight.
完美的生存者必须能够在食物充足时尽可能多地摄入并储存热量，以此作为应对食物短缺时期的缓冲。当食物短缺时，他还必须减少能量消耗，并在食物再次可得时高效且准确地恢复流失的脂肪储备。这些过程依赖于从外周通过硬连线的神经、代谢和激素信号传递给分布式代谢传感神经元中央网络的信息。这些传感神经元参与神经内分泌、自主神经和运动过程，这些过程涉及觉醒、运动活动以及热量的摄入、吸收、同化、储存和消耗。这些代谢传感器检测来自不断增加的脂肪储备的抑制信号的阈值升高，使得在高热量食物容易获取时能够持续摄入多余的热量。不幸的是，这种在盛宴和饥荒时期生存的机制使完美的生存者在高美味、高能量密度的食物以低能量成本随时可得时容易肥胖。它还进一步确保增加的脂肪储备在代谢上受到保护，防止体重下降。因此，只有更好地理解确保对体重升高进行这种保护的生理、代谢和神经化学过程，才能有效治疗肥胖症。
