Regularly eating a high fat/calorie diet could reduce the brain’s ability to regulate calorie intake. New research in rats found that after short periods of being fed a high fat/high calorie diet, the brain adapts to react to what is being ingested and reduces the amount of food eaten to balance calorie intake. The researchers suggest that calorie intake is regulated in the short-term by cells called astrocytes (large star-shaped cells in the brain that regulate many different functions of neurons in the brain) that control the signalling pathway between the brain and the gut. Continuously eating a high fat/calorie diet seems to disrupt this signalling pathway.