Monday, March 29, 2010

Ice cream may target the brain before your hips

I was interested in this article since I thought this could be helpful for most people in this society. Most people, nowadays, love eating fast food because it is convenient and tasty. However, the study from Texas University Southwestern Medical Center proved that those foods, such as hamburgers, milkshakes, ice creams, or chocolates let people to eat more and more. The reason is that the saturated fats from foods directly stimulate cerebrum; according to the study, Dr. Clegg indicates that fatty acid ignores the hormones of insulin and leptin in cerebrum. Therefore, people do not feel satiated while eating. The hamburgers strongly take this action so that people want to eat same hamburgers again even after three days.

1 comment:

Swe said...

This topic is definitely one I can relate to as I love ice cream. I recently went through a stage in which I constantly craved ice cream. While I later learned that the cravings were a case of pica, it didn't explain why I rarely became full even if I overate.
It's very interesting that, as stated in the article, our brain chemistry can change instantly when hit with fatty acids found in ice cream. Thus, the brain stops signaling that we are full as it becomes resistant to insulin and leptin... Which sort of reminds me of how with the first bite of something sweet, your taste buds are hit with the sugar, but as you keep eating, you grow accustomed to it.

What other edible substances affect our brain chemistry so strongly/immediately? Could the food we eat/ our usual diet cause us to have different brain function and lead different lives? While this could work in our favor, it is daunting to think that a thing as complex as the brain could easily be manipulated with food alone.