León, Gto., April 18, 2017.- For three years, Mexico is atop the list of countries with more obesity, according the World Health Organization (WHO). Due to the serious problem of public health it represents, a group of researchers from the University of Guanajuato (UG), works in identifying, in the brain level, the origins of the problem.

Despite a national strategy, the problem has not been controlled. According the National Survey of Health and Nutrition 2016, 36.3% of the teenagers and 72.5% of adults in Mexico are overweight or obese. Hence, the need to seek alternatives to understand what causes this phenomenon.

Dr. Cuauhtémoc Sandoval Salazar, of the Division of Health Sciences and Nursing of Campus Celaya-Salvatierra of UG, is one of the professors who researches what occurs in the brain of people with a high consumption of trans fat and sugar.

In collaboration with Dr. Martha Silvia Solís Ortíz and Dr. Joel Ramírez Emiliano, of the Department of Medical Science of Campus León; they work in knowing the different processes of the hormone neurotransmitters related with obesity and how this generates an inflammation in the brain and different organs.

At the conference "Connectivity and obesity", taught in the International Week of the Brain 2017, Dr. Sandoval Salazar explained that the different memory processes and the type of life we have generate neural connections, thus creating a neural network –or connectivity—.

Researchers have found that due to the feeding patterns they have followed, the neural networks on overweight or obese people are "designed" to consume more caloric food, and the change of food habits is not simple, since it requires time to create new neural networks, that adequate to healthy food.

Dr. Sandoval exposed the tests made at the Neurobiology Laboratory, at the Division of Health Sciences and Nursing of Campus Celaya, has allowed to prove that high levels of fat provoke a decrease of neurotransmitters, hence, overweight affects the cognitive function in obese persons.

He detailed that a high consumption of trans fat or sugar, generate free radicals, which degrade the neuron membranes. The membrane can die, thus, losing the brain connections, mentioned the researcher.

On the work held at the Neurobiology Laboratory, he said that some of his colleagues have focused in exploring different types of learning and memory and how these processes can be altered for the consumption of hyper caloric diets.

In addition of describing these processes, UG's researchers evaluate substances with antioxidant properties, such as garb, to prove if its consumption can revert the effects of overweight and obesity in the brain level.