Thursday, 15 August 2013
Is Food Addiction Real ?
Ever desire you’re fighting a losing battle with a bag of potato chips? Your brain can be in charge. Foods with a high glycemic index (GI) activate constant space of the brain that’s triggered by gambling and habit-forming medication, in keeping with a recent study printed within the yank Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
For the study, researchers fed twelve overweight or weighty men milkshakes that were identical—except some were high-GI, whereas the others were low-GI. Four hours later, the people that Ate the high-GI shakes were hungrier, had lower blood glucose levels, and had a lot of activity within the space of the brain related to cravings and addiction.
Eating food isn’t like gambling or taking drugs—so why will it have the same impact on the brain? High-GI foods cause a spike then a plummet in blood glucose levels, says lead study author Belinda Lennerz, MD, PhD, a clinical fellow in pediatric medicine at Children’s Hospital Bean Town. This speedy modification triggers activity within the brain’s pleasure center, inflicting you to regain your appetency a lot of quickly and provides into your cravings a lot of simply.
That doesn’t mean the food is essentially habit-forming within the method that alcohol or cocain ar, though. whereas most habit-forming behaviors or substances aren’t essential always, food is—with one caveat: “People really eat for several alternative reasons with the exception of energy needs: for pleasure, out of frustration, to satisfy a desire,” says Lennerz. Behaviors like this, let alone the rise in brain activity within the cravings center, indicate that the danger of “food addiction” may probably be real.
Do you believe that an individual will be enthusiastic about food? Tell United States in our poll and pontificate within the comments:
Foods That Make You Do Bad Things
It's a common slipup: when weeks of feeding well, touching the gymnasium, and skipping sweet, you are heading in the right direction to lose those 5 pounds. You be a reward—some candy, a (non-diet) soda, or a facet of fries. however hours later, the scene around you appears like The Hangover meets the Food Network.
In the same manner that some medication pave the manner for even tougher ones, a weakness for a definite food will open the door to Associate in Nursing avalanche of dangerous feeding selections, says metropolis Wenk, Ph.D., author of Your Brain on Food. Some foods area unit like entrance medication," he says. "From your brain's viewpoint, there's no distinction." These questionable entrance or trigger foods cause you to query of management, perhaps even physically unable to prevent reaching for a lot of, partially due to their addictive result on your mind and body, per analysis. however rehab is perhaps easier than you think that.
Junk Food Junkies
It may appear silly to deem being hooked in to food, one thing we'd die while not, however most folks eat for lots over simply survival. just staring at or puzzling over a food you recognize you're keen on activates the reward portion of your brain, the nucleus accumbens—the same space aroused by medication and alcohol. This triggers the discharge of Dopastat, a feel-good chemical that enhances your awareness of that food (so forget ignoring it!).
And once you've got taken that 1st bite, watch out. Tasting food engages all of your senses (and could also be felt a lot of intensely in ladies than in men, for unknown reasons). Your system responds by secreting hypoglycemic agent (which drops blood glucose) and quiet your abdomen muscles, that causes you to desire you would like to eat a lot of to be glad, says Susan Roberts, Ph.D., a academician of nutrition at Tufts University and author of The "I" Diet.
There's a reason this tends to happen virtually completely with fatty and sweetened foods and not, say, lettuce. The saturated fats in foods like bacon and cheese impair your brain's traditional ability to manage appetence and cravings, thus you do not understand you are full till you are utterly stuffed, says Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., a health man of science at Stanford University and author of The self-possession Instinct. what is a lot of, that result on your appetence will last for up to 3 days, the length of your time it takes to flush those fats from your system. thus one unhealthy indulgence will find yourself triggering a significant relapse.
Add sugar to the fatty food—ice cream, cake, doughnuts—and you've got a double whammy. High-sugar foods increase your levels of hormone, a internal secretion that stimulates appetence and will increase cravings. "So you will tell yourself 'Just one bite' however end up wanting a lot of and a lot of, the a lot of you eat," says McGonigal.
Sugar conjointly has been shown to reinforce memory storage, which can make a case for why you would like it within the 1st place, so a lot of of it on special social occasions. As a result, your brain has evolved a system of rewards that offers you a true high after you eat sugar. "The brain responds to each sugar and fat by cathartic endorphins," says Wenk. Chemically, those feel-good compounds area unit just like opiate and may have a biological impact just like an attempt of heroin—including inflicting you to jones for an additional fix once the initial elation begins to fade.
Regaining management
Avoiding cravings entirely is hard, only if they'll be brought on by stress, PMS, or maybe simply puzzling over feeding. however there is lots you'll be able to do to avoid skidding down the slippery slope of entrance foods.
USE YOUR HEAD
One of the simplest times to prevent a binge is before it begins.
A 2010 study by Australian researchers found that puzzling over a desire uses up mental energy—enough that you're going to struggle to try to to the rest or maybe assume commonly. however if your brain is otherwise engaged, you'll need fewer psychological feature resources out there to invoke mental pictures of brownies. thus once a desire hits, strive doing division, sudoku, or reckoning backward, and see if it goes away.
INTERRUPT YOURSELF
If you are 3 bites into a pint of fudge ripple after you feel a pang of regret, strive change to a healthier snack. Once your senses are engaged, your body goes to demand a lot of food, however you'll be able to still decide what to present it. ice or a chunk of fruit will shower your roof of the mouth, which may facilitate place the brakes on puzzling over the things you crave.
HIDE YOUR TRIGGERS
Proximity to food influences what proportion of it you eat, says James Painter, R.D., a academician at jap Illinois University United Nations agency studies activity feeding. strive keeping healthy foods right wherever you'll be able to see them, and stash unhealthy ones during a hard-to-reach drawer—or simply do not keep them around the least bit.
GET BACK heading in the right direction
Maybe you could not stop yourself from finishing up the complete caramel ice-cream sundae, however that is no reason to present up entirely. we've an inclination to specialise in the short consequences of our actions, however keeping a semipermanent goal in mind—say, fitting into that actually cute bikini—can assist you understand that you just will still get there despite a happening, says McGonigal. consider it this way: each meal could be a likelihood to start out over and get laid right.
Tempting Tastes
Readers named the subsequent foods possibly to bust their willpower:
- Bacon
- Licorice
- Burger
- Doughnut
- Nachos
- Fries
Stop Food Craving
When an exact texture calls your name quite your girdle would love, use these swaps to assist you stop food cravings while not adding inches.
When you crave: fresh (chips, caramel popcorn, biscotti)
Chew this: Baby carrots, fruit slices, or rice cakes. Almonds may also work, however be careful: 0.5 a cup has over four hundred calories.
When you crave: Creamy (peanut butter, risotto, mack 'n' cheese)
Chew this: Sugar-free Jell-O, hummus, or for dinner, a bowl of velvety soup
When you crave: Greasy (fries, pizza, burgers)
Chew this: Baked sweet-potato fries or thin-crust pizza pie with veggies. select ninetieth or higher lean beef--your mouth will not apprehend the distinction.
When you crave: Fluid (juice, soda, slushies)
Sip this: tasteful carbonated water or gently sugary tea. (Studies recommend that limiting caloric beverages results in weight loss.) Or attempt a smoothie. analysis shows that the thicker and additional whipped the drink, the additional satisfying it'll be, saving you calories at your next meal. to realize most thickness, supply a frozen banana and mix.
How Restaurants Get You to Order Unhealthy Food
Let’s say you’re at a eating place and each of the desserts below ar on the menu. what percentage calories would you guess ar in every one?
If you’re thinking the strawberry-topped version should be higher for your region, you’re alittle off—and you’re not alone. folks tend to assume that unhealthy foods with healthy toppings have fewer calories than they really do, in step with the Journal of shopper psychological science.
For the foremost half, each teams were ready to guess the overall range of calories fairly accurately—with one exception: folks within the cake cluster were a lot of seemingly to assume the fruit-topped cake had fewer calories than the plain one. Of course, adding any topping can increase the amount of calories—even if it’s fruit.In the study, 211 students were split into 2 teams. One cluster was given 3 salads: one plain, one with fruit, and one with milk Ranch dressing. the opposite cluster was given with 3 items of chocolate cake: one plain, one with fruit, and one with topping. Researchers asked every participant to guess what percentage calories were in every dish.
When tempted with delicious-looking—and unhealthy—food, folks can rummage around for any excuse to convert themselves that it’s not fully unhealthy for you, says study author Jill Lei, PhD, senior lecturer at Melbourne University. It’s an honest example of what specialists talk over with the “health halo” result at work: once your food has one good-for-you quality (like being organic or having strawberries on it), it’s easier to inform yourself that you’re ingestion healthy—even if you’re stuffing your face with organic cookies or a chunk of cake topped with strawberries.
In different words, don’t let your guard down simply because a meal appears healthy upon 1st glance—a carrot cake continues to be a cake, after all.
Does Coffee Cure Headaches?
What is it concerning low that looks to cure a headache? - Courtney, Birmingham, AL
There are 2 theories. The first: A headache happens once the body releases nucleoside, a chemical that inflames blood vessels, inflicting throbbing and pain. The caffein in low puts the foreclose on nucleoside and helps constrict blood vessels. The second theory posits that caffein will increase the effectiveness of pain relievers, serving to the body absorb them additional quickly for quicker relief. Hence, several pain pills contain caffein, and that’s why sound Advil along with your joe will facilitate your dome.
How Coffee Affects Your Weight
Consider this before you continue a day java run: Overdoing it with the occasional could promote weight gain, in keeping with a replacement analysis revealed within the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
For the animal study, Australian researchers divided mice into 3 teams. the primary Greek deity a traditional diet, the second a high-fat diet, and therefore the third a high-fat diet that contained an outsized quantity of chlorogenic acid (CGA), a sort of inhibitor found in occasional. Over the span of twelve weeks, the critters that Greek deity the high-fat diet with CGA hold on a lot of fat and old accrued aldohexose sensitivity and internal secretion resistance, precursors to kind a pair of polygenic disorder, compared to the mice WHO Greek deity a high-fat diet while not the occasional compound. The results came as a surprise to researchers.
“Our hypothesis was that the occasional compound would cut back weight gain and improve internal secretion sensitivity,” says study author Kevin D. Croft, PhD, of The University of Australian state college of medication and materia medica. ”Clearly this can be not the case.”
Don’t break things off with Joe simply however, though. The mice within the study consumed doses of CGA cherish drinking 5 or six cups of occasional per day, says Croft. Previous analysis has shown that intense CGA carefully will scale back pressure, increase internal secretion resistance, and—here’s the kicker—even forestall weight gain. whereas researchers square measure unsure why the alternative is true at high doses, they believe that excessive CGA intake could hinder the body’s ability to method and use fat.
To reap coffee’s health edges while not increasing your poundage, limit yourself to a few or four cups of occasional daily, says Croft. confine mind, though, that a cup is eight ounces. Suck down a Trenta from Starbucks, and you’ve already hit your liquid ecstasy for the day.
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