You've heard that romance starts in the kitchen and
not in the bedroom. Well, researchers at Drexel University finally have the
science to support that saying -- but not the way you might think.
Credit: © psphotography / Fotolia
You've heard that romance starts in the kitchen and
not in the bedroom. Well, researchers at Drexel University finally have the
science to support that saying -- but not the way you might think.
In a new study published online in the journal
Appetite, researchers found that women's brains respond more to romantic cues
on a full stomach than an empty one. The study explored brain circuitry in
hungry versus satiated states among women who were past-dieters and those who
had never dieted.
The study's first author Alice Ely, PhD, completed
the research while pursuing a doctoral degree at Drexel, and is now a
postdoctoral research fellow at the Eating Disorders Center for Treatment and
Research, part of the UC San Diego School of Medicine. Michael R. Lowe, PhD, a
professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at Drexel University, was senior
author.
"We found that young women both with and without
a history of dieting had greater brain activation in response to romantic
pictures in reward-related neural regions after having eaten than when
hungry," said Ely.
Ely said the results are contrary to several
previous studies, which showed that people typically demonstrate greater
sensitivity to rewarding stimuli when hungry. Such stimuli may include things
like food, money and drugs.
"In this case, they were more responsive when
fed," she said. "This data suggests that eating may prime or
sensitize young women to rewards beyond food. It also supports a shared
neurocircuitry for food and sex."
The latest finding, based on a small pilot study,
grew from Ely and her Drexel colleagues' earlier work investigating how the
brain changes in response to food cues. Specifically, the researchers looked at
whether the brain's reward response to food differed significantly in women at
risk for future obesity (historical dieters) versus those who had never dieted.
All of the study participants were young, college-age women of normal weight.
In that study, published in Obesity in 2014, the
researchers found that the brains of women with a history of dieting responded
more dramatically to positive food cues when fed as compared to women who had
never dieted or who were currently dieting.
"In the fed state, historical dieters had a
greater reaction in the reward regions than the other two groups to highly
palatable food cues versus neutral or moderately palatable cues," she
said. Highly palatable cues included foods like chocolate cake; neutral cues
were things like carrots.
Ely said the data suggests historical dieters, who
longitudinal studies have shown are more at risk for weight gain, may be
predisposed by their brain reward circuitry to desire food more than people who
have not dieted.
"Based on this study, we hypothesized that
historical dieters are differentially sensitive -- after eating -- to rewards
in general, so we tested this perception by comparing the same groups' brain
activation when viewing romantic pictures compared to neutral stimuli in a
fasted and fed state," she said. Testing was done using MRI imaging.
While both groups' reward centers responded more to
romantic cues when fed, the historical dieters' neural activity noticeably
differed from the non-dieters in one brain region that had also turned up in
the earlier food studies.
"The pattern of response was similar to
historical dieter's activation when viewing highly palatable food cues, and is
consistent with research showing overlapping brain-based responses to sex,
drugs and food," said Ely.
Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided
by Drexel University. The original item was written by Alex McKechnie. Note:
Materials may be edited for content and length.
No comments:
Post a Comment