Calorie counter in the brain affects nutrition

Calorie counter in the brain affects nutrition

27/10/2014

There is a kind of calorie counter in the human brain. This signalizes the true nutritional value of food, even if we are completely wrong. The more intense the reaction of the internal calorie counter, the stronger the craving for this food. That might explain why calorie bombs are so irresistible to humans.

Irresistible calorie bombs
Sweet and greasy: Not only those who want to diet, know how hard it can be to resist the temptations of pizza, chips, chips, sweets and other calorie bombs. And although almost every person knows that such foods are enormously rich, we keep on using them. Especially with children and adolescents, the unhealthy foods are usually at the top of the list. Canadian researchers may now have found a reason for this. The human brain has its own calorie counter.

Well-being through substantial food
Alain Dagher and his team from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital wanted to investigate whether improving calorie awareness can influence the preference for nutritious foods. „Previous studies have confirmed that children and adolescents tend to choose high calorie foods“, so Dagher. The selection is mainly controlled by past experiences. Foods that taste good and create a sense of well-being are bought again. Unfortunately, this applies exactly to the most substantial dishes.

Organic calorie counter
The Canadian scientists showed 29 children and adolescents photos of 50 different snacks and foods for their study. On a scale of 1 to 20, young subjects should state how much they liked the food and their calorie content. In the journal „Psychological Science“ The researchers report their results. Thus, the juveniles were surprisingly far off most foods when it came to calorie content. Brain scans taken during the test, however, showed that the brain was less fooled. Thus, the region in the forebrain always jumped particularly strong when the food was very high in calories and regardless of how the adolescents in their conscious classification assessed. So a kind of biological calorie counter.

Teenagers prefer high calorie foods
In a second experimental variant, the study participants should then offer at an auction on the foods that they wanted to have the most. It showed that adolescents offered the most foods that also had the highest calorie content - no matter how high they themselves had estimated the sewing value. It seems that the internal calorie counter is so well linked to the brain regions for decision making that we automatically choose the calorie bombs.

Education about calories may not do much
So if this automatism causes the brain to associate a high calorific value with high enjoyment - in the sense of nutritious = delicious - this could mean that calorie information education is of limited benefit. In the past, experts have often pointed out that awareness-raising campaigns and appeals to the population were not particularly successful. Therefore, some professionals repeatedly ask a so-called sugar-fat tax to make unhealthy food more expensive. If this results in fewer of these foods being consumed, it can help to reduce health risks. For example, foods rich in sugar and fat promote the risk of developing diabetes, hypertension or obesity. (Ad)