{"id":211887,"date":"2019-04-29T04:20:32","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T08:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=211887"},"modified":"2019-04-29T04:20:32","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T08:20:32","slug":"high-calorie-food-causes-more-weight-gain-during-stress-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/29\/high-calorie-food-causes-more-weight-gain-during-stress-study\/","title":{"rendered":"High-calorie food causes more weight gain during stress: study"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Researchers found that eating high-calorie diet under stress could result in more weight gain than eating the same diet in a stress-free condition. (Pexels Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
WASHINGTON<\/strong>\u00a0— Researchers found that eating high-calorie diet under stress could result in more weight gain than eating the same diet in a stress-free condition.<\/div>\n
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The study published on Thursday in the journal Cell Metabolism revealed a molecular pathway in the brain, controlled by insulin, which drives the additional weight gain under stress.<\/div>\n
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“This study indicates that we have to be much more conscious about what we’re eating when we’re stressed, to avoid a faster development of obesity,” said Herbert Herzog, head of the Eating Disorders laboratory at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research.<\/div>\n
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They found that at the center of this weight gain was a molecule called NPY, which the brain produces naturally in response to stress to stimulate eating in humans, as well as mice.<\/div>\n
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“We discovered that when we switched off the production of NPY in the amygdala, weight gain was reduced. Without NPY, the weight gain on a high-fat diet with stress was the same as weight gain in the stress-free environment,” said Kenny Chi Kin Ip, the study’s lead author and a researcher at Herzog’s lab.<\/div>\n
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The food intake is mainly controlled by a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, and another part of the brain called the amygdala processes emotional responses, including anxiety, according to the researchers.<\/div>\n
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However, the researchers found that nerve cells that produced NPY in the amygdala had receptors for insulin, a hormone which control food intake.<\/div>\n
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Normally, the body produces insulin just after a meal, which helps cells absorb glucose from the blood and sends a “stop eating” signal to the hypothalamus feeding center of the brain.<\/div>\n
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In the study, the researchers discovered that chronic stress alone raised the blood insulin levels only slightly. But in combination with a high-calorie diet, the insulin levels were 10 times higher than mice that were stress-free and received a normal diet.<\/div>\n
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Those prolonged, high levels of insulin in the amygdala caused the nerve cells to become insensitive to insulin, which stopped them from detecting insulin altogether.<\/div>\n
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Then, the heightened NPY levels promoted eating and reduced the bodies’ normal response to burn energy through heat, creating a vicious cycle, according to the study.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON\u00a0— Researchers found that eating high-calorie diet under stress could result in more weight gain than eating the same diet …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":211889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","mauthors-xinhua","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211891,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211887\/revisions\/211891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}