Innovation Anthology #762:

Dr. Bill Colmers

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When it comes to the battle of the bulgeit appears your biggest enemy is your brain.  

Dr. Bill Colmers at the University of Alberta has been researching the chemical messengers the brain produces that control appetite.

And he’s found, in fat rats at least, the brain will change it’s secretions,-forcing the rats to regain or hang onto their fat.

DR. BILL COLMERS:  Once we’d shown that some individual animals really defended that excess weight when they’d been on that low fat diet, we put them back on the high fat diet.  And they went to town and they ate as much as they could.  And after five  or six weeks, their weight sort of levelled out. And we looked at what happened in their brain.  They’d gained that extra weight back to where they thought they should be and their STOP (eating) signal came back.  And we were able to find out where the STOP signal was coming from .  It was coming from another part of the hypothalamus, and the receptors that mediate that STOP signal , those cells had stopped making it.  And when we got them back on the high fat diet, they started making it again.    

The next step for Dr. Colmers is to figure out what happens in the brain that causes sick people to lose weight involuntarily.  

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.

 

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Program Date: 2016-03-03