Obesity & Weight Management

Biography

Biography: Yi-Hao Yu

Abstract

Hedonic obesity is caused by persistent overeating driven by hedonic hunger resulting from dysfunctional neural circuitries that govern reward and emotion. Excessive food intake in this case is a consequence of complicated food-seeking behavior to achieve reward and satisfaction, rather than to meet energy needs. If there were non-caloric foods that can satisfy patients’ hedonic needs without adding calories, there would be no obesity issue in this subpopulation of patients. This is in contrast to metabolic obesity, in which the obese weight is sustained because of the increased caloric needs demanded by an elevated body weight set point. In metabolic obesity, if patients take in less calories than what are required to maintain the homeostatic set point, their bodies would respond by conserving energy and constantly seeking for more calories; they would be constantly hungry until the obese body weight is restored. In this presentation, I'll discuss some of the future treatment options, mostly still in the pipeline at this time which would allow food intake to satisfy hedonic needs and reward but prevent excessive caloric assimilation. Th ese treatment options will most likely be successful in the subpopulation of patients who have hedonic obesity.