a at Augusta University. It is important because brain inflammation can contribute to serious problems such as dementia and stroke.
Diet and genetics are other likely factors that explain the differences broadly assigned to estrogen, says Stranahan, corresponding author of a study that was recently published in the American Diabetes Association journalWatch a video of where males and female mice gain weight on a high-fat diet. While at some point females can have the same amount of visceral fat as males, there is still less inflammation.
Since, much like with people, obese female mice tend to have more subcutaneous fat and less visceral fat than male mice, they reasoned that the distinctive fat patterns might be a key reason for the protection from inflammation the females enjoy before menopause. The subcutaneous fat loss increased brain inflammation in females without changing the levels of their estrogen and other sex hormones.
When subcutaneous fat was removed from mice on a low-fat diet at an early age, they developed a little more visceral fat and a little more inflammation in the fat. But Stranahan and her colleagues saw no evidence of inflammation in the brain. She notes that the new study looked specifically in the hippocampus and hypothalamus of the brain. The hypothalamus controls metabolism and exhibits changes with inflammation from obesity that help control conditions that develop bodywide as a result. The hippocampus, a center of learning and memory, is regulated by signals associated with those pathologies but doesn’t control them, Stranahan notes.