How Your Brain Sabotages Your Diet - LifeGoesStrong

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At midlife, chances are you have struggled to lose weight. If the scales won't move, you probably blame just about everything out there: food ads on TV, too much junk food in the supermarket, treats passed around by colleagues at work. But now a new study indicates the real culprit could be your own brain.

According to researchers at Yale University, the brains of obese people respond to pictures of food as if they were hungry even when they're not. Even if they want to diet, their brain is telling them to chow down.

That system works differently in normal weight people, the researchers say. The reward centers in their brains tell them they're full by turning off positive feelings associated with food. But in obese people, the reward system turns on at the sight of food even if the stomach is full.

The methodology for this study is interesting. The researchers showed nine lean and five obese volunteers pictures of such foods as ice cream, French fries, cauliflower or salad. Their brains were scanned as they looked at the pictures and the volunteers were asked to describe how much they wanted a particular item.  All had eaten within a few hours of the test.

The researchers found that all the volunteers reported wanting the high-calorie treats when their blood sugar was low but obese people wanted the food even when their blood sugar was normal.

At midlife, chances are you have struggled to lose weight. If the scales won't move, you probably blame just about everything out there: food ads on TV, too much junk food in the supermarket, treats passed around by colleagues at work. But now a new study indicates the real culprit could be your own brain.

According to researchers at Yale University, the brains of obese people respond to pictures of food as if they were hungry even when they're not. Even if they want to diet, their brain is telling them to chow down.

That system works differently in normal weight people, the researchers say. The reward centers in their brains tell them they're full by turning off positive feelings associated with food. But in obese people, the reward system turns on at the sight of food even if the stomach is full.

The methodology for this study is interesting. The researchers showed nine lean and five obese volunteers pictures of such foods as ice cream, French fries, cauliflower or salad. Their brains were scanned as they looked at the pictures and the volunteers were asked to describe how much they wanted a particular item.  All had eaten within a few hours of the test.

The researchers found that all the volunteers reported wanting the high-calorie treats when their blood sugar was low but obese people wanted the food even when their blood sugar was normal.

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