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Are you no longer able to lose your love handles like you used to? This is completely normal: the older you get, the less easy it is to lose weight. Explanations.
After a deviation, have you seen the needles of the scale tilting in the wrong direction? The more we advance in time, the less room the scale gives you to make mistakes. The pounds are “stored” more easily, according to researchers.
Receptors involved
According to Science, it is the melanocrotin 4 (MC4) receptors, present on the neurons in our hypothalamus, which are mainly responsible for this “slowed” weight loss.
“The MC4 receptor receives the satiety signal and acts against obesity by stimulating metabolism and inhibiting appetite”, explains Kazuhiro Nakamura, a physiologist at Nagoya University and lead author of the study.
Indeed, according to the works Researchers conducted with rats of different ages and weights, MC4 receptors tend to be less effective over time.
As the rats tested grew older, the “cilia” that carried the MC4 receptors shortened – leading to obesity and resistance to leptin (a digestive hormone that regulates fat stores in the body as well). than appetite).
Result ? The feeling of satiety was no longer regulated… and the rats were hungrier. The energy intake/expenditure balance was, in fact, inexorably affected. According to Nakamura and his team, a similar process could occur in humans.
Another explanatory factor for this age-related weight gain: the drop in basic metabolism. Indeed, the more muscular the figure, the higher the basic metabolism and the more calories the body burns at rest.
But over time, muscle mass decreases… and energy expenditure follows this evolution.
“The decline in muscle mass increases from the age of 50, which reduces energy expenditure at rest. So much so that even without changing anything in your eating habits, without overdoing it, you will store pounds more easily.“, Alexandra Retion told us in a previous interview.
Fortunately, many factors (calorie reduction, sport, dietary rebalancing, etc.) make it possible to stop the shrinkage of the antennae of neurons and to regain… the figure!
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