Just the Sight of Food Gets the Liver Ready for Action

In mice, seeing and smelling food causes immediate cellular changes that ready the liver to convert incoming amino acids to proteins.

Written byAbby Olena, PhD
| 3 min read

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Anticipating something tasty can lead to a watering mouth and grumbling stomach, but these familiar responses aren’t the only ways the body prepares for nourishment. According to a study published today (November 15) in Cell, sensing food primes mice to process incoming nutrients by directions from the central nervous system to the liver.

“It’s a great tour de force combining [several strategies] in one paper to then identify pathways by which food anticipation could alter hepatic metabolism,” says Christoph Buettner, a physician and researcher at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York who was not involved in the study. “It’s interesting that even before your food hits your tongue or ends up in your stomach, there are changes that prepare an organism for nutrient storage.”

Two types of cells in the brain’s hypothalamus have been shown in previous studies to play opposing ...

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  • abby olena

    As a freelancer for The Scientist, Abby reports on new developments in life science for the website. She has a PhD from Vanderbilt University and got her start in science journalism as the Chicago Tribune’s AAAS Mass Media Fellow in 2013. Following a stint as an intern for The Scientist, Abby was a postdoc in science communication at Duke University, where she developed and taught courses to help scientists share their research. In addition to her work as a science journalist, she leads science writing and communication workshops and co-produces a conversational podcast. She is based in Alabama.  

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