Not all drinks were made to quench a person’s thirst: Far from it, alcoholic beverages and those that contain sugar make us even thirstier, and scientists may have found the reason why. In a study published in Cell Metabolism, research indicated the liver hormone FGF21, or fibroblast growth factor 21, to be responsible for the brain’s actions to increase water intake to prevent dehydration.
Looking for water after a sweet night out
Researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern) have been studying FGF21 for a long time, with earlier research pointing out the hormone’s ability to act using the brain’s reward pathway to control the need for sugar and alcohol in favor of drinking water.
“We knew that exposure to alcohol or sugar turns on production of FGF21 in the liver. What we now show is that this hormone then travels in the blood to a specific part of the brain, the hypothalamus, to stimulate thirst, thereby preventing dehydration,” explained Dr. Steven Kliewer, a professor at UT Southwestern. “Unexpectedly, FGF21 works through a new pathway that is independent of the classical renin-angiotensin-aldosterone thirst pathway in the kidneys.”
In the study, the team discovered that FGF21 regulated hydration in response to nutrient stress. Using both healthy mice and those that were mutated to be genetically unable to produce FGF21, they discovered that while both mice were able to drink similar amounts of water after a standard diet, the mutated mice were unable to produce FGF21 after they were subjected to a high-fat/low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet. According to researchers, this established the role of the hormone in the signaling pathway. (MORE)
Source: Natural News
No comments:
Post a Comment