Brain Responds Differently to Food Cues in Severely Obese Women

Photo by Henrique Félix licensed under CC0 A recent study by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has shown that severely obese women who have just eaten will continue to respond to food cues even though they are no longer hungry. On the contrary, leaner women who have just eaten will not receive these cues from their brain. The study compared 15 severely obese women to 15 lean women. Researchers took MRI images of the participants’ brains before and after eating. When any person is hungry, their brain will react in a certain way when shown images of food. The study found that once full, the lean woman’s brain no longer reacted to those images—the MRI scans showed the appeal of the food images dropped 15 percent. Obese women’s brains, however, were still excited when viewing those images—the appeal dropped only 4 percent. “These findings may explain why some people with severe obesity report an underlying drive to eat continually despite not feeling hungry,” said Dr. Puzziferri, who specializes in bariatric and weight loss surgery, in a news release. “In contrast, lean women when full will either stop eating or just sample a food they crave. It’s just not a level playing field – it’s harder for some people to maintain a healthy weight than others.” To learn more about the study, please visit “Brain activity and response to food cues differ in severely obese women.” Follow NN/LM SCR on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
Source: Network News - Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Tags: Consumer Health Source Type: news