Neural circuits of food intake - is it all about calories?

Obesity now has the status of a disease, as well as being clearly associated with the prevalence of other diseases such as diabetes, heart conditions, hypertension and some cancers.  It is therefore incumbent on the medical community to find effective treatments. 

Hyperphagia is driving obesity – humans are eating more frequent and larger meals.  In this presentation, Harvey Gill analyses the role of the nervous system as the body seeks and digests food and explains recent research that demonstrates where satiation-induced feeding inhibition fails to work. 

He discusses the development of more tools for treating obesity seriously, including surgical and pharmaceutical approaches.  He believes that other strategies such as finding altered sugar structures that preserve taste and pleasure or identifying nutrients that elevate levels of satiety signals should also be pursued.