ArticleMolecular metabolism2013
Diet-induced changes in the Lean Brain: Hypercaloric high-fat-high-sugar snacking decreases serotonin transporters in the human hypothalamic region.
Article in Molecular metabolism, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 49 citations in OpenAlex.
- Brain Serotonin Transporter Is Elevated in Obesity: Bayesian and Frequentist Meta-Analyses.Diabetes, obesity & metabolism · 2026Pooled it
- The Genetic Basis of Childhood Obesity: A Systematic Review.Nutrients · 2023Pooled it
- Hypercaloric diets with increased meal frequency, but not meal size, increase intrahepatic triglycerides: a randomized controlled trial.Hepatology (Baltimore, Md.) · 2014Trial
- Neural mechanisms linking Western diet consumption and cognitive impairment: a role for the vagus nerve.Clinical science (London, England : 1979) · 2026Review
- Depression and caries in adolescents: role of social inequities and sugar consumption.Clinical oral investigations · 2026Article
- Serotonin signaling to regulate energy metabolism: a gut microbiota perspective.Life metabolism · 2025Review
- Observational
- Associations between dietary habits and bipolar disorder: a diet-wide mendelian randomization study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Serotonin Transporter (SERT) Expression Modulates the Composition of the Western-Diet-Induced Microbiota in Aged Female Mice.Nutrients · 2023Article
- The potential impact of nutritional intake on symptoms severity in patients with comorbid migraine and irritable bowel syndrome.BMC neurology · 2022Article
- Association between sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and depression and suicidal ideation among Korean adults: a cross-sectional study from the 2014 and 2016 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES).Nutrition research and practice · 2022Article
- Orexin, serotonin, and energy balance.WIREs mechanisms of disease · 2022Review
- Striatal Dopamine Transporter Availability Is Not Associated with Food Craving in Lean and Obese Humans; a Molecular Imaging Study.Brain sciences · 2021Article
- Serotonin, food intake, and obesity.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2021Review
- Metabolic, Molecular, and Behavioral Effects of Western Diet in Serotonin Transporter-Deficient Mice: Rescue by Heterozygosity?Frontiers in neuroscience · 2020Article
- Strawberry Intake Ameliorates Oxidative Stress and Decreases GABA Levels Induced by High-Fat Diet in Frontal Cortex of Rats.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2019Article
- Analysis of gut microbiota of obese individuals with type 2 diabetes and healthy individuals.PloS one · 2019Article
- Serotonin Transporter Binding in the Diencephalon Is Reduced in Insulin-Resistant Obese Humans.Neuroendocrinology · 2017Article
- Diet-Induced Obesity and Circadian Disruption of Feeding Behavior.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2017Review
- Comparison of brain serotonin transporter using [I-123]-ADAM between obese and non-obese young adults without an eating disorder.PloS one · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
It is evident that there is a relationship between the brain's serotonin system and obesity. Although it is clear that drugs affecting the serotonin system regulate appetite and food intake, it is unclear whether changes in the serotonin system are cause or consequence of obesity. To determine whether obesogenic eating habits result in reduced serotonin transporter (SERT)-binding in the human hypothalamic region, we included 25 lean, male subjects who followed a 6-week-hypercaloric diet, which were high-fat-high-sugar (HFHS) or high-sugar (HS) with increased meal size or -frequency (=snacking pattern). We measured SERT-binding in the hypothalamic region with SPECT. All hypercaloric diets significantly increased body weight by 3-3.5%. Although there were no differences in total calories consumed between the diets, only a hypercaloric HFHS-snacking diet decreased SERT-binding significantly by 30%. We here show for the first time in humans that snacking may change the serotonergic system increasing the risk to develop obesity.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.