Medicine News »

For the cholesterol content is responsible, including the brain
The level of cholesterol in the blood is determined, including neuropeptide called Ghrelin, which, as shown by earlier work, associated with reaction to stress. Thus, it is possible that scientists closer to understanding how stress affects the heart and blood vessels.

A team of U.S. scientists led by Mattiusi Chop (Matthias Tschöp) from the University of Cincinnati found that cholesterol is responsible for, including the brain. More specifically, the hypothalamus, or more precisely, cells that respond to the hormone Ghrelin.
Ghrelin-what is it?

The name “Ghrelin” may be unfamiliar even to those who received medical or biological entity – the fact is that the substance was discovered only in 1999 by a group of Japanese scientists. They gave him the name that actually stands for _ * g * rowth * h * ormone-* rel * eas * in * g peptide_-peptide, releasing growth hormone. And initially it was thought that Ghrelin acts only on the production of growth hormone.
But more recent studies (all in 1999, was published about 4 thousand works on Ghrelin!) Have shown that this hormone is associated with many other processes, up to learning and memory formation. Like many other signaling molecules in the body, Ghrelin has many different functions, and therefore it would be incorrect to call it now “hormone cholesterol” – it’s just that among other factors on the level of cholesterol affects this peptide.

amoxicilin, doxycyclin, ibuprophen, levothyroxin, lexipro, previcid,welbutrin

How it works?

In this issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers for the June 6 provided a description of the mechanism by which Ghrelin regulates the number of molecules of cholesterol in the blood. A series of experiments on mice showed that the molecules that interact with neuropeptide receptors on the surface of cells of the hypothalamus, an important component of the endocrine system.

And it is not about arbitrary receptors (each cell has many different protein molecules, receptors), and on a well-defined from the variety. The experiments scientists have shown that if the methods of genetic engineering to deprive the animal receptor type MC4R, normally reacting well to the hormone melanokortina, all the effects of ghrelin disappear. Mice lacking ghrelin receptors interacting with, showed elevated levels of cholesterol.

Ghrelin, interacting with the MC4R receptors affects the activity of the hypothalamus, and already the hypothalamus through a number of other hormones affect the processing of cholesterol in the liver. Such a “two-storey” chain is common to many other processes, but follow a similar relationship between the central nervous system and cholesterol levels have not yet succeeded.
What does this mean?

It goes without saying that a hormone active in the brain that affects the level of cholesterol, does not mean the possibility of consciously change this level at any time. But it means that scientists may have stolen up to the riddle of how the state of the nervous system is associated with cardiovascular disease.

Elevated levels of cholesterol, which normally requires the body to a number of different processes of synthesis of sex hormones before the formation of nerve cells, long regarded physicians as a major risk factor for delayed plaques in blood vessels. The formation of plaques on the walls of blood vessels leads, in turn, to their blockage, which can lead to heart attack or stroke.
A number of works devoted to ghrelin and made up the study of American Scientists, points to the fact that it is associated with reaction to stress, until the formation of depressive disorders. It is possible that far from here, and to refine knowledge of how stress affects the heart and blood vessels.