Reasons For Obesity: Overweight People May Not Know When They’ve Had Enough

Posted on January 18th, 2010.

They say your eyes are bigger than your stomach when it comes to feeling full but new studies indicate the brain responds differently while the stomach is filling up. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have founds areas of the brain that motivate the desire to overeat, bringing us closer to lessening the many reasons for obesity.

“By simulating feelings of fullness with an expandable balloon we saw the activation of different areas of the brain in normal weight and overweight people,” said lead author Gene-Jack Wang of Brookhaven Lab’s Center for Translational Neuroimaging. The overweight subjects had less activation in parts of the brain that signal satiety in normal weight subjects. The overweight subjects were also less likely than normal weight subjects to report satiety when their stomachs were moderately full. “These findings provide new evidence for why some people will continue to eat despite having eaten a moderate-size meal,” said Wang.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080109112302.htm

Dr. Wang and his colleagues studied the brain metabolism of 18 individuals in their quest for discovering reasons for obesity. Each individual swallowed a balloon. While the balloon was in the stomach, it was filled and emptied with varying amounts of water ranging from 50% - 70% capacity. The individuals were also hooked up to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan

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their brains. Subjects were also asked throughout the study to describe their feelings of fullness. Interestingly enough, the higher their BMI, the lower their likelihood of saying they felt “full” when the balloon was inflated 70 percent.

The study shows a strong connection between an area of the brain being activated or underactivated depending upon the feeling of fullness. The left posterior amygdala - was activated less in the high-BMI subjects, while it was activated more in the thinner participants.

The scientists also looked at a range of hormones that regulate the digestive system. They found ghrelin, a hormone known to stimulate the appetite and cause short-term satiety, to be related. Researchers found the individuals who had greater increases in ghrelin levels after their stomachs were moderately full also had greater activation of the left amygdala. We’ll see more research on ghrelin with reasons for obesity in the upcoming year most likely. With new forms of weight loss treatments aimed at the brain to follow.
Exciting times,
-admin Thinexa natural weight loss supplement