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Is a special hormone the trigger? Why some people constantly feel an appetite for sweets
Some people like to grab salty snacks like chips. Others, on the other hand, prefer chocolate, biscuits, gummy bears and others. Many find it hard to resist the craving for treats. Researchers have now come up with a clue as to why some of the cravings torment for sweets, while others have no problem with it.
Urge for chocolate and other sweets
Delicious chocolates, a piece of cream cake, biscuits covered with chocolate: For many people, the sweet craving for sweets already sets in, if they only think of the various delicacies. Apologies for feasting are also usually fast: stress in the job, a small reward for finished or sociable get-togethers. Researchers provide people who can not keep their fingers off sweets, now another excuse: The irrepressible urge for chocolate and Co is apparently influenced by a particular hormone.
While some people can barely resist chocolate, cake and co, others have little appetite for sweets. Researchers now report that cravings are influenced by a particular hormone. (Image: dream79 / fotolia.com) The hormone FGF21 is produced in the liver
Tips against cravings are often ignored. After all, sweets are irresistible to many people.
Danish researchers are now providing justification why this might be so. The liver or the hormone FGF21 (fibroblast growth factor 21) formed by the organ plays an important role here.
According to scientists from the University of Copenhagen, special variants of the gene responsible for this are more likely to be found among people with a sweet tooth than among other people. The team around Matthew Gillum and Niels Grarup reported in the journal "Cell Metabolism".
Hormone slows down sweetness
"The data, which come from a study on lifestyle and metabolism of 6500 Danes, offer surprising insights into the possible hormonal basis of the desire for sweets," said Gillum, according to a message from the news agency dpa.
Previous studies on animals have shown that the hormone produced by the liver slows down the predilection for sweets and alcohol.
A recent study by Tufts University researchers in Boston, USA, which was published in the journal The FASEB Journal, also suggests that genes may be at fault for cravings for chocolate.
Sweet toothed cats that did not tend to overweight
The Danish researchers have now investigated how two particular variants of the gene, which contains the blueprint for FGF21, affect people's tendency to sweets. To do this, they compared the genetic make-up of the 6,500 participants with their food preferences.
The two variants thus increase the tendency to sweet. According to the data, the probability that they were sweet-toothed was about 20 percent higher for the affected people than for the other participants.
However, they were not particularly prone to obesity or diabetes type 2. "Dozens of factors contribute to metabolic diseases," said Grarup. "In this study, we only see a small piece in a big puzzle."
Tendency to increase alcohol and tobacco consumption
The subjects with the two gene variants had not only a weakness for dainties, but also a tendency to more alcohol and tobacco consumption. This is explained by scientists as the hormone acts on the reward system in the brain.
However, it is also conceivable that people who eat a lot of sweets tend to pay less attention to their health.
The researchers looked at the general role of the hormone for the body in another experiment.
"Our results show that circulating FGF21 regulates the intake of sweetness in adult humans as well as other primates and mice," the team reported. Maybe the liver is still forming other hormones that have an impact on the diet. (Ad)