A couple of interesting short articles from latimes.com
I guess I am becoming newspaper diet guy. Anyhow I found these on the latimes.com health section. I would suggest browsing both there and the nytimes.com health section from time to time. Yes you do need to register for both, but it is free for both. Okay I am going to post them this time because they are very short.
Accounting for Taste
Overweight people may have many strikes against them--genetics, lifestyle, slower metabolism and hormonal conditions to name just a few. But at the bottom of the list, or the top, depending on how you look at it, is that they simply eat more calories than they burn. And the reason they eat too much may be that the taste of food gives them more of a thrill than it does for someone who can easily say no thanks to chocolate cake or a sizzling steak.
Ten severely obese men and women and a comparison group of 20 lean volunteers had PET (positron emission tomography) scans of their brains at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y. When the PET scans were compared, the researchers found that the taste and mouth regions in obese people were "hot spots" of activity compared with the same regions in lean men and women.
This hyperactivity in the areas of the brain involved with taste could make obese people more sensitive to the sensual rewarding properties of food and could be one of the reasons they eat too much, concludes Gene-Jack Wang, lead author of the study and clinical head of PET imaging program at Brookhaven. Having less tasty food in the house might be one strategy to help obese people cut back on calories.
NeuroReport, July 2, 2002
And the next one...
Hooked on Sugar
You can lead a hungry rat to sugar water and it will soon become hooked, quickly doubling its daily intake. Now researchers have found that by creating a sugar habit in rodents, they may eventually be able to explain sugar cravings in humans.
After 12 hours of fasting, the rats were given a balanced diet plus sugar water for 12 hours. Over the following days, not only did the rats increase their sugar intake, they consumed most of their daily fix within the first hour after it was offered, one of the first signs of dependency.
Researchers hesitate to use the word "addicted," but they believe that the rats did become dependent on opioids in their brains that were released when they got a rush of sugar. When the sugar was suddenly stopped, the rats got the shakes. Their teeth chattered and they had paw tremors.
Although some people think they're hooked on sugar, there hasn't been any proof that a true addiction exists. This study in rats strongly hints at a habit-forming connection between cravings and brain chemistry, and it indicates that fasting and then bingeing could be an important part of that puzzle.
Obesity Research 10 (6): 478-488
I found the first abstract very interesting. I contend in my weight loss success that 'willpower' or determination was the key for me. I simply thought about what I was doing in relation to food and exercise daily and I was determined to change my habits. As corny as it sounds, you burn more cals then you take in, you lose weight. I had often said I have a slow metabolism am big boned, etc, but I found my metabolism is fine, I was just eating too much and too much of the wrong things.
About sugar, we are hooked on sugar. It might surprise you but only 25% of the soft drinks sold in the US are diet. And I mean we as in we our society. Almost all processed foods it seems are loaded with sugar. I personally eat bread without sugar. I love the taste and it has 50 or so calories a slice. I think getting weened off sugar is a good thing.
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