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A professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School blames many modern problems on the fact that human genes have not caught up with the modern era.

"We still have Stone Age brains inside contemporarily clothed bodies," Professor Deirdre Barrett said. "So we cannot really trust our instincts, we need to trust our intellects."

In some cases, these outdated instincts may be responsible for overweight and obesity, Dr. Barrett noted.

People may crave fat, salt and sugar because it was very scarce years ago, she said, adding that it takes about 10,000 years for genes to catch up to modern conditions.

"Our genes haven't had time to stop craving those things and start craving green leafy vegetables," she noted.

Labels: genetics, brain_activity, brain_development

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An study on animals has revealed that a high-fat diet takes an immediate toll on short-term memory and the ability to exercise.

• Researchers at Cambridge University in Britain fed rats a low-fat diet and trained them to complete a maze.
  
• Then half the rats were switched to a high fat diet.
  
• Within just four days, the rats on the high fat diet began to fail the maze test, and they performed 30 percent worse on treadmills.

"We expected to see changes but not so dramatic and not in such a short space of time," said Professor Andrew Murray. "It was really striking how quickly these effects happened."

The study appeared in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

Labels: diet, brain_activity, research, exercise, memory

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A new study from the University of Florida indicates that fructose syrup may play a role in changing body chemistry to create obesity.

Fructose is a sugar found in fruit. Fructose syrup is a common ingredient in table sugar, corn syrup, and many foods and beverages.

The Florida team fed two groups of mice the same diet, except that one group also consumed fructose syrup. After six months, members of the fructose group had higher levels of triglycerides in their blood. Next, the scientists injected all the rats with leptin, a substance that ordinarily would decrease appetite and lower food intake. However, the fructose group members did not decrease their food intake as the other group did.

Dr. Philip Scarpace, one of the authors of the study, believes that elevated triglycerides somehow prevent leptin from entering the brain. Leptin, Scarpace said, signals the brain to "stop eating".

The study appeared in the journal Regulatory Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

Labels: brain_activity, causes of childhood obesity, sugars

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A recent study on brain activity seems to refute the commonly held opinion that overweight people eat more because they love to eat. The study, conducted through the Oregon Research Institute, found that obese people actually enjoy food less, and so end up eating more in order to compensate.

"[When women] tasted a chocolate milkshake or tasteless liquid, the heavier women had less activity in their brains' pleasure centers. The women with the gene variant had the lowest pleasure response when tasting the milkshake. They had to consume more of the shake to get the same pleasure response."

The gene variant, known at Taq1A1, appears to be linked with lower dopamine receptors in the brain. Since dopamine is the primary transmitter for the brain's reward system, fewer receptors means the reward system is impeded. Researchers are now trying to determine whether reward systems can be reset. Source: Health News

Labels: genetics, brain_activity, causes of childhood obesity

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Obese teenagers who haveType 2 diabetes show subtle abnormalities in their brains when they undergo Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRIs). They also perform more poorly on tests that measure intellectual functioning, memory and spelling, according to a new study from New York University Langone Medical Center.

"Subtle changes in the white matter of the brain in adolescence may be a result of abnormal physiology that accompanies Type II Diabetes," said Dr. Antonio Convit, lead author of the study.

This study appears in the journal Diabetologia.

Labels: health, brain_activity, diabetes

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 1 Comment