Rutgers Health recently launched the Center for NeuroMetabolism, which aims to address the weight loss and health challenges many Americans face that can lead to Type 2 diabetes, obesity, eating disorders and other gastrointestinal, vascular and inflammatory disorders.
The center – part of the Child Health Institute of New Jersey and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) – plans to become a global leader in metabolic health research and hasten the development of more targeted drug therapies with fewer side effects. Metabolic health is the way the body processes nutrients efficiently and includes factors such as blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Over the past decade, scientists have been examining how the brain uses metabolic information to drive and influence behavior. Research indicates that obesity and other eating disorders such as binge eating are the result of biological mechanisms in the brain and digestive system that can lead to overeating, slower burning of calories and other metabolic problems linked to obesity.
“Metabolic disease is not like a cancer or a traumatic brain injury that will kill you quickly, but it is a disease that will cause a lot of health issues that will affect daily life and cause long term health problems,” said Zhiping Pang, director of the Center for NeuroMetabolism and Henry Rutgers Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology. To read the full story.