“This may explain why people with serious obesity often eat more than necessary,” says Mireille Serlie, lead researcher and professor at Amsterdam UMC. She is also a professor at Yale University, who was also involved in the research.
MRI-scan
The researchers used MRI to measure the brain activity of 28 participants with a healthy body weight and 30 obese subjects, immediately after they had received the 500-calorie food in the stomach.
By administering the food directly, taste and color, for example, had no influence on brain activity. The results showed that obese people had no brain activity after the meal, while it did change in people with a healthy weight.
Dopamine release in the brain, as measured by a SPECT scan, was also much lower in people with severe obesity. Dopamine is a substance that has an effect on, among other things, the feeling of well-being and the feeling of reward.
The dopamine in the obese people turned out to be barely measurable. It could therefore also be an explanation for being overweight, but this has not really been established.
Losing weight difficult
The brain’s responses remained the same even after weight loss. “This could contribute to the weight gain that we very often see after people first successfully lose weight,” Serlie concludes. “If the brain doesn’t change along with it, it’s difficult to maintain healthy eating habits.”
2023-06-12 16:47:30
#Obesity #brain #activity #eating #calories
