When we ask ourselves why we eat too muchwhy don’t we regulate the nervous hunger they hunger pangsbecause we can’t resist a nice plate of pasta with pesto even if we are already quite full and we know that it doesn’t help us with our diet or keep us fit, well, we finally have a answer. Thanks to one studio scientific who analyzed the role of the brain in hunger and impulsive eating
Why do we have hunger pangs?
Impulsivenessor the fact that we don’t think about the consequences of an action, has been linked to excessive food intake. And from there to weight gain, obesity, up to other dangerous psychiatric disorders such as drug addiction and excessive gambling.
The discovery comes from a team of researchers from the University of Georgia, who identified a specific circuit in the brain which alters food impulsiveness. there is of course also good news: this research gives science the possibility of developing (perhaps, one day) therapies to deal with overeating.
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The hormone that explains why we eat too much
Science is giving important answers to questions about hunger and the tendency to gain weight: we have already seen, for example, the mechanism that leads us to gain weight as we age (we talk about it here). This study, published in the journal Nature Communications, addresses the issue of ‘unnecessary’ hunger, which pushes us to eat even when we don’t need it. If we want, of nervous hunger, of the ‘throat’.
The academic team focused on a subset of brain cells that produce a type of transmitter in the hypothalamus called MCH, melanin-concentrating hormone. If other studies had shown that increasing MCH levels in the brain can lead to increased hunger and food intake, The work of the American university is the first to demonstrate that this hormone has a key role in impulsive behavior.
“We found that when we activate the brain cells that produce MCH, we become more impulsive about food,” explains researcher Emily Noble.
Can nervous hunger be cured?
From experiments it has been understood that our brain has a basic physiology that regulates the our ability to say no to food, or to eat compulsively. This hormone does not affect how much we enjoyed the food or how much we are willing to do anything for the food; the circuit works rather on inhibitory control, that is, on our ability to prohibit ourselves from obtaining food.
In short, even if we don’t need to take in calories, when this MCH neuron pathway is activated, impulsive behavior increases and we start eating without control.
Why is this study important? Because understanding the mechanism of this circuit will allow us to develop therapies against excess food consumption in the future, and thus help people to follow a diet without reducing your normal appetite or make good foods less irresistible.
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2024-06-27 08:14:50
#eat #hormones #fault
