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Review
. 2015 Oct;20(110):191-6.

Continuation of gradual weight gain necessary for the onset of puberty may be responsible for obesity later in life

Steven Lehrer  1
Affiliations
Review

Continuation of gradual weight gain necessary for the onset of puberty may be responsible for obesity later in life

Steven Lehrer. Discov Med. 2015 Oct.

Abstract

A continuation of the gradual weight gain necessary for the onset of puberty may be responsible for obesity later in life. Hypothetically, a group of brain nuclei form components of a single pubertal clock mechanism that drives pre-pubertal weight gain and governs the onset of puberty and fertility. No mechanism evolved to shut off pre-pubertal and pubertal weight and body fat gain after puberty. The weight gain continues unabated throughout life. A better understanding of the mechanism of puberty and pre-pubertal weight gain could provide new insights into obesity and diseases associated with obesity such as type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, hypertension, heart disease, depression, etc.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure: The author reports no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The high LH levels at birth and puberty, in both normal and agonadal girls, can be accounted for by a continual reduction of arcuate nucleus intrinsic frequency after birth. (Modified from Grumbach, 1980).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Blind girls (and rats reared in constant darkness) probably have higher than normal suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) frequencies and corresponding harmonics. As a result, the intrinsic frequency of the arcuate nucleus does not have to diminish as much for resonance to occur, and puberty can take place at an earlier age.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The beat phenomenon. Two rhythms of slightly different frequencies, shown in (a), combine in (b) to produce a rhythm whose amplitude (broken line) varies periodically with time. This variation may account for the LH pulses which occur only during sleep in early puberty.
Figure 4
Figure 4
BMI vs. age in females. Data from girls in 50th percentile of BMI ages 2 years to 19 years are from Centers For Disease Control, Clinical Growth Charts (http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/clinical_charts.htm#Set1); data for women above age 20 (7 data points) are from reference Kuczmarski et al., 1994, women in the 50th BMI percentile. The drop in BMI up to age 5 parallels the fall in plasma LH levels shown in Figure 1. The narrow left segment and widened right segment of the sinusoidal BMI curve above may correspond to the fact that gonadotropin (arcuate nucleus) pulse frequency decreases with aging in post-menopausal women (Hall et al., 2000). Note the five points above BMI 25. These women are overweight. 55% of American women fall into this category (Must et al., 1999).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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