Train your brain to crave healthy not unhealthy foods, a new study using brain imaging has shown it is possible to train your brain to prefer healthy low-calorie foods over unhealthy higher-calorie foods.
As posted on the web from the journal Nutrition & Diabetes, researchers from Tufts University and at Massachusetts General Hospital conducted a study on the brain with adult men and woman.
They believe the outcome suggest that you’ll be able to change the addictive power involving unhealthy food while raising personal preference intended for healthy food.
“We don’t start out in life loving French fries and hating, for example, whole wheat pasta, ” stated senior and co-corresponding publisher Susan B. Roberts, Ph.D.
“This conditioning happens over time in response to eating- repeatedly!- what is out there in the toxic food environment. ”
Scientists have discovered that, the moment bad meal craving are established, they could be hard or even not possible to change, subjecting those who have accumulated weight into a use of bad food cravings and temptation for the rest of their lifetime.
To find out perhaps the brain might be re-trained to guide healthy food possibilities, Roberts and also colleagues examined the prize method in 12 chubby and also overweight people — seven involving who were participants inside a new weightloss system designed by Tufts College or university research workers and also 5 who have been inside a management group and also cant be found enrolled in this program.
Both groups underwent magnetic resonance image resolution (MRI) brain scans at the beginning and end of a six-month period of time.
Among those who participated in the weight loss program, the brain scans revealed improvements in regions of the brain that dealt with rewards. This areas are associated with learning and addiction.
Following six months after the training, the section of the brain dealing with rewards, had increased its sensitivity to healthy, lower-calories foods. This indicated an increased reward and enjoyment of healthier food cues.
The area exhibited diminished level of sensitivity towards the unhealthy higher-calorie food.
“The weight loss program is specifically designed to change how people react to different foods, and our study shows those who participated in it had an increased desire for healthier foods along with a decreased preference for unhealthy foods, the combined effects of which are probably critical for sustainable weight control, ” stated co-author Sai Krupa Das, Ph.D.
“To the best of our knowledge this is the first demonstration of this important switch. ”
The particular authors hypothesize that a number of features of the weight loss system were important, including behavior change, education, and high-fiber, low glycemic menu plans.
“Although other studies have shown that surgical procedures like gastric bypass surgery can decrease how much people enjoy food generally, this is not very satisfactory because it takes away food enjoyment generally rather than making healthier foods more appealing,” said first author and co-corresponding author Thilo Deckerbach, Ph.D
“We show here that it is possible to shift preferences from unhealthy food to healthy food without surgery, and that MRI is an important technique for exploring the brain’s role in food cues. ”
“There is much more research to be done here, involving many more participants, long-term follow-up and investigating more areas of the brain, ” Roberts included.
“But we are very encouraged that, the weight loss program appears to change what foods are tempting to people.”
