How does the body regulate energy balance, and what factors influence weight gain and loss?

Introduction

The regulation of energy balance and the factors influencing weight gain and loss are complex processes involving multiple physiological mechanisms. These mechanisms ensure that energy intake matches energy expenditure to maintain body weight. However, various factors, including genetic predisposition, hormonal signals, and lifestyle choices, can disrupt this balance, leading to weight gain or loss.

Key Insights

Energy Homeostasis and Genetic Influence:
- Energy homeostasis involves balancing energy intake and expenditure, with macronutrient intake needing to match macronutrient oxidation. Individuals with low fat oxidation, low energy expenditure, or low physical activity are more prone to weight gain due to these imbalances.
- Genetic factors play a significant role in body weight regulation, influencing how individuals respond to an obesogenic environment.
Neural and Hormonal Regulation:
- The hypothalamus and hindbrain integrate peripheral signals to regulate nutrient intake and energy utilization. Dysregulation in these neural circuits can lead to obesity.
- Hormones like insulin and leptin activate catabolic pathways that reduce food intake and increase energy expenditure, while inhibiting anabolic pathways that stimulate food intake and decrease energy expenditure. This balance is crucial to prevent excessive weight gain.
Impact of Physical Activity and Energy Expenditure:
- Energy expenditure (EE) influences energy intake (EI) through mechanisms like the thermic effect of food. Increased physical activity can lead to better appetite control and maintenance of a healthy body weight.
- Chronic exercise can increase energy intake, but sedentariness does not necessarily decrease it, indicating a complex relationship between physical activity and energy balance.
Role of Macronutrient Excretion:
- Fecal energy loss, a third factor often overlooked, can influence energy balance by modulating macronutrient excretion. This can impact the propensity to gain weight.
Central Role of the Hypothalamus:
- The hypothalamus plays a central role in energy balance control, regulating both energy expenditure and food intake through different nuclei. Peripheral hormones secreted during fasting or fed states have antagonistic effects on food behavior and energy expenditure.

Conclusion

The regulation of energy balance is a multifaceted process involving genetic, neural, hormonal, and lifestyle factors. Genetic predisposition and hormonal signals like insulin and leptin play crucial roles in maintaining this balance. Physical activity and macronutrient excretion also significantly influence energy homeostasis. Understanding these mechanisms can help in developing strategies to manage weight gain and loss effectively.

How does the body regulate energy balance, and what factors influence weight gain and loss?

Summary

Introduction

Key Insights

Conclusion

Sources and full results

Energy metabolism, fuel selection and body weight regulation

Carbohydrate balance may play a role in regulating energy homeostasis and body weight, with genetics and metabolic flexibility playing a strong role in maintaining weight.

Neurotrophins and the regulation of energy balance and body weight.

Neurotrophins, particularly brain-derived neurotrophic factor, play a crucial role in regulating energy balance and body weight, potentially contributing to obesity and related medical complications.

Is the energy homeostasis system inherently biased toward weight gain?

The energy homeostasis system is inherently biased towards weight gain, as catabolic pathways are activated and anabolic pathways are largely inhibited, making weight loss more vigorous than weight gain.

Striking a balance: Orexigenic and energy‐consuming effects of energy expenditure on body weight

Energy expenditure (EE) influences body weight through multiple pathways, with orexigenic effects and energy-consuming effects influencing each other, and the balance between these effects is malleable and influenced by various biological and behavioral factors.

Role of Energy Excretion in Human Body Weight Regulation

Energy excretion plays a crucial role in human body weight regulation, potentially impacting the propensity to gain weight.

Regulation of the Energy Balance

The hypothalamus plays a key role in regulating energy balance, with diet and physical exercise playing crucial roles in maintaining body weight.

Is regulation of body weight elucidated?

The regulation of body weight involves a counter-regulatory tendency to correct lipolysis and lipogenesis, influenced by chronic central action of plasma insulin on hypothalamic insulin receptors.

Dietary fat and body weight set point.

The body weight set point is influenced by factors such as dietary fat and organochlorine pollutants, and may fluctuate due to the impact of these factors on fat balance.

Biobehavioral influences on energy intake and adult weight gain.

U.S. adult weight gain is primarily due to overconsumption of energy, with factors like dietary variety, portion size, taste, snacking patterns, and dietary restraint/disinhibition contributing to hunger, satiety, and weight increases over time.

From physiology to neuroendocrinology: a reappraisal of risk factors of body weight gain in humans.

Metabolic risk factors of body weight gain may be the phenotypic expression of a dysfunctional leptin-SNS activity body weight regulatory loop.

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