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Brain's reaction to yummy food may predict weight, study suggests



 
 
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Old October 20th, 2008, 08:38 PM posted to alt.support.diet
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Default Brain's reaction to yummy food may predict weight, study suggests

The most important part of this article is when author of this article
says that doctor should direct people who tend to gain weight to get
involved in recreational sports or other things that give them
satisfaction and pleasure and dopamine that aren't food.

It's exactly what I do when I feel like eating junk food or
overeating. I go out for a walk, clean the apartment , play the guitar
and things in that nature. Some activities does not count and even
invite you to eat even mo Watching TV which does not involve any
physical activity.

http://health.lifestyle.yahoo.ca/cha...hannel_id=1055

Brain's reaction to yummy food may predict weight, study suggests
Provided by: The Canadian Press
Written by: Lauran Neergaard, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Oct. 17, 2008


WASHINGTON - Drink a milkshake and the pleasure centre in your brain
gets a hit of happy - unless you're overweight.

It sounds counterintuitive. But scientists who watched young women
savour milkshakes inside a brain scanner concluded that when the brain
doesn't sense enough gratification from food, people may overeat to
compensate.

The small but first-of-a-kind study even could predict who would pile
on pounds during the next year: Those who harboured a gene that made
their brain's yum factor even more sluggish.

"The more blunted your response to the milkshake taste, the more
likely you are to gain weight," said Dr. Eric Stice, a senior
scientist at the Oregon Research Institute who led the work, published
in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

A healthy diet and plenty of exercise are the main factors in whether
someone is overweight. But scientists have long known that genetics
also play a major role in obesity - and one big culprit is thought to
be dopamine, the brain chemical that's key to sensing pleasure.

Eating can temporarily boost dopamine levels. Previous brain scans
have suggested that the obese have fewer dopamine receptors in their
brains than lean people. And a particular gene version, called Taq1A1,
is linked to fewer dopamine receptors.

"This paper takes it one step farther," said Dr. Nora Volkow of the
National Institutes of Health, a dopamine specialist who has long
studied the obesity link. "It takes the gene associated with greater
vulnerability for obesity and asks the question why. What is it doing
to the way the brain is functioning that would make a person more
vulnerable to compulsively eat food and become obese?"

It's "very elegant work," she added.

First, Stice's team had to figure out how to study the brain's
immediate reactions to food. Moving inside an MRI machine skews its
measurements, which ruled out letting the women slurp up the
milkshakes. Yale University neuroscientist Dana Small solved that
problem, with a special syringe that would squirt a small amount of
milkshake or, for comparison, a tasteless solution into the mouth
without study participants moving. They were told when to swallow, so
researchers could co-ordinate the scans with that small motion.

Then they recruited volunteers, 43 female college students ages 18 to
22 and 33 teenagers, ages 14 to 18. Body mass index calculations
showed the young women spanned the range from very skinny to obese.

Brain scanning showed that a key region called the dorsal striatum - a
dopamine-rich pleasure centre - became active when they tasted the
milkshake, but not when they tasted the comparison liquid that just
mimicked saliva.

Yet that brain region was far less active in overweight people than in
lean people, and in those who carry that A1 gene variant, the
researchers reported. Moreover, women with that gene version were more
likely to gain weight over the coming year.

It's a small study with few gene carriers, and thus must be verified,
Volkow stressed.

Still, it could have important implications. Volkow, who heads NIH's
National Institute of Drug Abuse, notes that "dopamine is not just
about pleasure." It also plays a role in conditioning - dopamine
levels affect drug addiction - and the ability to control impulses.

She wonders if instead of overeating to compensate for the lack of
pleasure - Stice's conclusion -the study really might show that these
people with malfunctioning dopamine in fact eat because they're
impulsive.

Regardless, most people's tongues find a milkshake quite tasty; the
brain reaction is subconscious.

But if doctors could determine who carries the at-risk gene, children
especially could be steered toward "recreational sports or other
things that give them satisfaction and pleasure and dopamine that
aren't food ... and not get their brains used to having crappy food,"
said Stice, a clinical psychologist who has long studied obesity.

"Don't get your brain used to it," he said of non-nutritious food. "I
would not buy Ho Hos for lunch every day because the more you eat, the
more you crave."

 




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