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Hypothesis & Theory ARTICLE

Build-ups in the supply chain of the brain: on the neuroenergetic cause of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus

Head of the Clinical Research Group, Brainmetabolism, Neuroenergetics, Obesity and Diabetes, Medical Clinic 1, Lübeck, Germany

Institute of Mathematics, University of Luebeck, Lübeck, Germany

Obesity and type 2 diabetes have become the major health problems in many industrialized countries. A few theoretical frameworks have been set up to derive the possible determinative cause of obesity. One concept views that food availability determines food intake, i.e. that obesity is the result of an external energy “push” into the body. Another one views that the energy milieu within the human organism determines food intake, i.e. that obesity is due to an excessive “pull” from inside the organism. Here we present the unconventional concept that a healthy organism is maintained by a “competent brain-pull” which serves systemic homeostasis, and that the underlying cause of obesity is “incompetent brain-pull”, i.e. that the brain is unable to properly demand glucose from the body. We describe the energy fluxes from the environment, through the body, towards the brain with a mathematical “supply chain” model and test whether its predictions fit medical and experimental data sets from our and other research groups. In this way, we show data-based support of our hypothesis, which states that under conditions of food abundance incompetent brain-pull will lead to build-ups in the supply chain culminating in obesity and type 2 diabetes. In the same way, we demonstrate support of the related hypothesis, which states that under conditions of food deprivation a competent brain-pull mechanism is indispensable for the continuance of the brain’s high energy level. In conclusion, we took the viewpoint of integrative physiology and provided evidence for the necessity of brain-pull mechanisms for the benefit of health. Along these lines, our work supports recent molecular findings from the field of neuroenergetics and continues the work on the “Selfish Brain” theory dealing with the maintenance of the cerebral and peripheral energy homeostasis.

Keywords:

brain metabolism, brain-pull, diabetes mellitus, experimental human study, glucose allocation, obesity, Selfish Brain theory, supply chain

Citation:

Peters A and Langemann D (2009). Build-ups in the supply chain of the brain: on the neuroenergetic cause of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Front. Neuroenerg. 1:2. doi:10.3389/neuro.14.002.2009

Received:

18 December 2008;

Paper pending published:

19 January 2009;

Accepted:

08 April 2009;

Published online:

28 April 2009.

Edited by:

Luc Pellerin, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Reviewed by:

Renaud Jolivet, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Robert Costalat, INSERM U. 483, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, France

© 2009 Peters and Langemann. This is an open-access article subject to an exclusive license agreement between the authors and the Frontiers Research Foundation, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.

*Correspondence:

Achim Peters, Professor of Internal Medicine, Head of the Clinical Research Group, Brainmetabolism, Neuroenergetics, Obesity and Diabetes, Medical Clinic 1, University of Luebeck, D-23538 Lübeck, Germany. e-mail: achim.peters@uk-sh.de