OBESITY-DERIVED DYSREGULATION OF NEUROSTEROIDS AND ITS IMPACT ON NEUROPROTEINS CONTENT IN BLOOD SERUM OF CHILDREN

Abstract

Childhood obesity is a serious medical condition that affects physical health, social and emotional well-being, and self confidence in more than 15 % of children. Obese children suffer from different degrees of neurological complexity with unknown origin. Therefore, this study aimed to clarify some ambiguities in obesity-derived neuropathology by evaluation of the neurosteroids (NS) and neuromodulatory proteins. For this purpose, gas chromatography was used to detect and evaluate NS in blood serum samples. The brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and Neuropeptide Y (NPY) were measured by using specific antibody as vital biomarkers of neurodevelopment and acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and tau proteins were assessed as risk factors for neural damages. Results showed cholic acid, deoxycholic acid and lithocholic acid increased in obese samples in comparison with healthy-weight children. While tetrahydrodeoxycorticosterone decreased and tau protein increased in circulation of obese children that represented neural damages. Decreased amounts of BDNF and NPY also could be refer to neural development disruption. The results elucidated NS biological functions in direct modulation of molecular events and also indirectly by gene expression regulation. Our results confirmed involvement of NS in obesity but it’s not clear that NS dysregulation is cause or consequence of overeating behavior. Overall, obesity-derived molecular events are associated with dementia pathophysiology that warns about the chance of dementia later in older age