Innovation Anthology #760:

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About 40 percent of Canadians are overweight or obese. 

Dr. Bill Colmers has been trying to figure out  exactly why.

He’s a Heritage Scientist and a Professor of Pharmacology and Neuroscience at the University of Alberta.

DR. BILL COLMERS:   We started out by  looking at what different regions of  the brain did in response to chemical messengers that made an animal eat.  So we started in a nucleus called the para ventricular nucleus which is a very old part of the brain called the hypothalamus.  And nerve cells in the para ventricular nucleus appeared to be important in regulating appetite.    That is, if you put in a chemical messenger that we know makes animals eat when its distributed through the brain, but when you put it exactly in that tiny cluster of cells, you get a very robust response.   Animals will eat a great deal, and even if they’re full, they’ll eat as much as a full meal or more.   If you keep on doing that, injecting it day in and day out, then the animal will actually become obese.   When you stop doing that,  they stop overeating and they regulate their body weight back to where it should be.

Dr Colmers also discovered another chemical messenger that makes ratsstop eating even when they/re hungry.

Thanks today to Alberta Innovates Health Solutions

FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER

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Alberta Innovates Health Solutions

Alberta Innovates (formerly Alberta Innovates – Health Solutions)

As the newly formed Alberta Innovates corporation, we still fund top quality, internationally competitive health research and innovation activities to improve the health and wellbeing of Albertans. We provide leadership for Alberta’s health research and innovation enterprise by directing, coordinating, reviewing, funding and supporting research and innovation.

Working with our many partners  in the health system, we ensure that research achieves innovation in care, policy and practice, and that the needs of patients and clinicians influence research.

Our background

Alberta Innovates consolidation was launched November 1, 2016.

Alberta Innovates – Health Solutions

Alberta Innovates – Health Solutions was established as part of the Alberta Innovates system by an Act of Legislation of the Government of Alberta. It is a agency  of the Government of Alberta. We receive a yearly allocation from the Ministry of Health and report through the ministry to the people of Alberta.

Our Mandate and Roles document reflects our role and responsibilities and outlines the government statues and regulations with which we comply.

Alberta’s Health Research and Innovation Strategy (AHRIS) sets out Alberta’s health research agenda for the coming decade to ensure our considerable investments in research align with our priority—to improve the health of Albertans.

 

 

Program Date: 2016-02-25