Sign up to receive updates when articles like this are published. Sign up to receive alerts when articles like this are published. Dr. Flier said. Dr. Flier says he is waiting for something to offer that truly works. But now, for the first time, he and others say there is real reason to hope.
Obesity research seems to have entered a new phase.
The excitement is in the lab and not yet in the clinic, much less in the drugstore. Nonetheless, experts agree, the field that many had dismissed as a scientific backwater has been shaken to its roots. Instead of endlessly rejiggering diets and exercise regimens, a new wave of scientists is getting at the molecular causes of appetite and satiety, unraveling elaborate chemical pathways that control how much animals, including people, eat. Some of the newly discovered molecules are thought to keep body weight stable by controlling appetite, so that someone who eats a huge meal one evening will not have a voracious appetite the next morning. Other molecules react to signals from the body that it is not fat enough, making people feel an urge to gorge on calorie-laden foods.