Professor Ryan and MCIP Ph.D. student Karlton Larson. PC: David Slipher|UC Davis
Professor Ryan and MCIP Ph.D. student Karlton Larson. PC: David Slipher|UC Davis

Engineering a Balanced Diet? Hormone FGF21 Promotes Protein Preference

To function daily, your body gleans energy from three food-derived macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats and proteins. How you divvy up those macronutrients in your diet is a matter of personal preference. But what if you could train your brain to prefer one macronutrient over the other? In a study appearing in EndocrinologyRyan and her colleagues, including Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Physiology Ph.D. student and lead study author Karlton Larson, identified the hormone fibroblast growth factor-21 (FGF21) as a control for regulating dietary protein intake in male mice. They found that male mice injected with the hormone increased their intake of dietary protein over carbohydrates and fats.

Click here to read more about the research in Professor Ryan's lab