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Ice Cream May Target The Brain Before Your Hips
We all love the rich creaminess of ice cream. And yes, if you eat to much, you’re going to have to buy a bigger belt. However, according to researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center, eating ice cream and similar fatty foods can be even more devastating to your waistline that once previously thought.
From their research, findings suggests that fat from certain foods you eat makes its way to your brain, and once there causes your brain to send messages to your body’s cells, warning them to ignore the appetite-suppressing signals from leptin and insulin, hormones that are involved in weight regulation.
In normal situations, according to Dr. Deborah Clegg, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern, our body is primed to say when we’ve had enough, but that doesn’t always happen when we’re eating something good.
Dr. Clegg went on to state that their findings suggest that when you eat something high in fat, your brain gets ‘hit’ with the fatty acids, and you become resistant to insulin and leptin. Since you’re not being told by the brain to stop eating, you overeat.
What’s more devastating is the fact that the study shows that someone’s entire brain chemistry can change in a very short period of time. Dr. Clegg said that in the animals used in the study, the effect lasts about three days, potentially explaining why many people who splurge on Friday or Saturday say they’re hungrier than normal on Monday.
The researchers also found that one particular type of fat, palmitic acid, is particularly effective at causing this reaction to occur. Palmitic acid is a common saturated fatty acid occurring in foods such as butter, cheese, milk and beef, and as its name suggest, palm oil.
From their research, they found that the palmitic acid specifically reduced the ability of leptin and insulin to activate certain intracellular signaling that is necessary for the hormones to do their jobs. Oleic acid, a fat found in olive and grapeseed oil, did not do this. The reaction was very specific to palmitic acid, which is found in foods that are rich in saturated-fat.
According to Dr. Clegg, the findings serve to reinforce the common dietary recommendation that you should limit the amount of saturated fat you intake. The other key finding, she said, is that this mechanism is triggered in the brain, long before there might be signs of obesity anywhere else in the body.
Dr. Clegg said that their next step, is to determine how long it takes to reverse completely the effects of short-term exposure to high-fat food.
Source:
The Journal of Clinical Investigation, September, 119(9), 2577
UT Southwestern Medical Center (2009, September 14). Ice Cream May Target The Brain Before Your Hips, Study Suggests. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 15, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2009/09/090914110533.htm
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