Fighting unhealthy eating habits: Investigating the protective role of environment on juvenile obesity

Dr Fabien Naneix, University of Aberdeen, with collaborator Dr Kate Peters, University of Sussex
RSE Small Research Grant

Obesity is a major health issue of our times. Exacerbated by the overconsumption of unhealthy foods and excessive food-craving, obesity—and associated diseases such as diabetes—are increasing in our population, particularly among children and teenagers.

Supported by an RSE Small Research Grant, neuroscientists Dr Fabien Naneix and Dr Kate Peters, carried out their project, Fighting unhealthy eating habits: The protective role of environment on juvenile obesity to better understand how environmental factors affect the adolescent brain, and whether environmental enrichment can protect the adolescent brain from the harmful effects of high‑fat, high‑sugar diets, which can disrupt the development of brain circuits involved in self‑control and food‑seeking.

To conduct the research, Dr Naneix and Dr Peters studied mice at the Rowett Institute, University of Aberdeen. Rodents are good models for developmental studies, including adolescence, because scientists can observe the same changes in the body, physiology, brain, and behaviour as in humans.

The researchers compared mice that had a healthy diet during early life with mice that had access to a bottle of sugar solution (at a concentration similar to that in fizzy drinks), in addition to their standard healthy diet. Once the mice reached adulthood, they examined their behaviour and cognition after they were all back on a healthy diet to assess any long-term effects. The scientists observed food choices or responses to food cues to test the theory that access to an enriched environment—such as physical and sensory stimulation, provided by bigger cages with toys, wheels, and tunnels—can reverse some of the deficits resulting from sugar exposure in adolescence.

The researchers explained that work is still ongoing to determine the neurobiological substrates of these alterations and the full impact of environmental enrichment on them. Dr Peters commented that, “This is brand-new research, and as a result, it presented risk because we were not entirely sure we would see a clear result and in which direction it would go. Our findings are on an animal model, so we have to be careful about our interpretation; however, in the future, we would like to link this with clinical and epidemiological studies, which could help shape future public health policies, not only about food recommendations but also about lifestyle and environment.”

Speaking about the impact of the RSE award, the academics highlighted the importance of seed grants, which enable initial studies like theirs to test ‘risky hypotheses’ and gather preliminary data to leverage larger projects.

Dr Naneix and Dr Peters have been long-term collaborators since they worked together at the University of Leicester. They said that the RSE grant allowed them to build upon their partnership and establish new links between research groups at the University of Aberdeen and the University of Sussex, where Dr Peters is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow. During the award, Dr Peters visited Aberdeen to share her expertise with Dr Naneix’s group, and together they built new networks with the local neuroscience and nutrition research community.

Dr Naneix said,

“The RSE award gave us the opportunity to bring together our different interests—adolescence, unhealthy diets, the role of environmental enrichment—and explore something totally new. That is the really exciting part of science!”

Both Dr Naneix and Dr Peters see this project as a first step into this exciting and novel area of neuroscience research. The analysis of brain tissues from their study continues, and they will attend the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies forum in Barcelona this summer to disseminate their findings to colleagues in their field internationally.

The researchers are also developing grant proposals for submission to bodies such as Diabetes UK and UKRI to further their work. They are particularly interested in determining whether environmental enrichment can mitigate the effects of excessive sugar consumption on mental health, brain function, and metabolism.

For more information on this research, please visit: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/fabien.naneix