New research from Johns Hopkins University on the effects of high fat diets on the brain is shedding more disturbing light on the fast food industry. If you love stopping by the easiest fast food joint and grabbing a burger for dinner on a regular basis, it may be pushing your brain to make you want to eat more.
High Fat Diets Stimulate Brain Cell Growth
Like a similar concept in physics, the more high fat food you eat, the more your brain grows cells that trigger the desire to eat high fat foods. These brain cells are located in the area of the brain that regulates hunger and the desire to eat. Interestingly, when researchers stopped the growth of these brain cells, study subjects (mice in this case) lost weight and became more active.
Implications for Future Obesity Treatments
While the research is in its initial stages, it provides intriguing ideas for future treatments for obesity and weight loss programs. If eating a high fat diet triggers growth of cells in the brain that stimulate hunger but the desire to eat is reduced when cell growth is stopped, it may be possible to develop treatments that interrupt the growth process. If this were the case, even if you had a history of eating a high fat diet, the side effect might be the ability to lose weight and be active with the right medical treatment.
So while eating a steady diet of fast food is probably not a good idea, there may be hope for future medical treatments that can take advantage of the side effects on the brain that result from your unhealthy eating habits.
– The Alternative Daily