The Obesity Epidemic: Why Some of Us Are Fat and What We Can Do About It

Join us at Genspace (http://www.genspace.org/) for another lecture presented as part of the Know Science (http://knowscience.org/) series. Know Science is an international education and advocacy organization working to promote knowledge of science and scientific research to a non-specialized audience.

Dr. Barry E. Levin, MD of the Department of Neurology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School will tackle the hard questions relating to obesity.

Is obesity due to food addiction?

Why is it so hard for me to lose and keep off weight once I become obese?

The good and the bad- what treatments are there for obesity?

What is obesity and how widespread is it?

Why is obesity important- what medical conditions that are a serious threats to your health are associated with obesity?

Is obesity inherited and how do early life events alter any inherited tendency to become obese?

What is the relationship among food intake, expenditure of calories and storage of excess calories as fat?

How does the brain and body communicate to regulate your food intake, body weight and adiposity?

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During his early training as a resident in Internal Medicine at Cornell Affiliated Hospitals, Dr. Levin worked at Rockefeller University with Dr. Jules Hirsh, one of the founding fathers of obesity research, to assess various metabolic, physiological and psychological aspects of extreme caloric restriction as a treatment for morbidly obese individuals. He then went on to train in Neurology at Cornell and NIH and then to pursue a career in academic neurology at Dartmouth Medical School and New Jersey Medical School. His initial research interest in neural plasticity was supplanted by a long research career in the basic mechanisms underlying the ways in which the brain monitors and regulates the physiological and metabolic status of the body in animal models of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus.