Friday, March 28, 2008

Weight Loss and Diet Study - Calories Trigger Brain Response

A new study is pointing to calories as the culprit of the brain response that triggers an "addiction" to food. That is, more calories creates more "pleasure" as a response in the brain, and therefore more calories would be desirable again. This may be an oversimplification of the process, but the bottom line is that too many calories may trigger a response in the brain of pleasure, and the cycle of wanting more calories when it's time to eat again continues. While the wrong types of calories are too often consumed, the body then becomes deficient of healthy nutrients. For this reason, you may want to consider adding Vemma liquid nutrition to your daily diet. Vemma stands for Vitamins, Essential Minerals, Mangosteen, and Aloe. These are all great sources of nutrients, with a large percentage coming from plant based sources.

Here's more about the connection with calories and the brain as reported on Food Navigator --

A new animal study indicates that food calories, not just sweetness, can trigger a positive response in the brain - a breakthrough that could have implications for anti-obesity strategies and the food industry. Scientists have long known that there is a link between sweet taste and production of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that provokes feelings of pleasure. Dopamine is produce in two areas of the brain - the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) of the ventral striatum, and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC).

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However the researchers from Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, wanted to find out if the brain dopamine reward system is sensitive to the metabolic value of nutrients, even when the taste receptor activation is absent. read more...

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