Close X
Monday, November 11, 2024
ADVT 
Health

Why People Crave For Sugar-Rich Foods

IANS, 09 Dec, 2014 12:55 PM
    Researchers have discovered a mechanism that prompts people to seek food rich in glucose - the body's main energy source.
     
    An enzyme called glucokinase in the brain, involved in sensing glucose in the liver and pancreas, plays a key role in driving our desire for glucose, reserachers showed in their findings. 
     
    It might be possible to reduce cravings for glucose by altering one's diet, it suggested.
     
    "Our brains rely heavily on glucose for energy. So we have a deep-rooted preference for glucose-rich foods," said lead researcher James Gardiner from Imperial College London.
     
    The researchers discovered that when rats go for 24 hours without eating, the activity of glucokinase in an appetite-regulating centre of the brain increases sharply.
     
    The rats were given access to a glucose solution as well as their normal food pellets, called chow.
     
    When the researchers increased the activity of glucokinase in the hypothalamus using a virus, rats consumed more glucose in preference to chow. When glucokinase activity was decreased, they consumed less glucose.
     
    "This is the first time anyone has discovered a system in the brain that responds to a specific nutrient, rather than energy intake in general," Gardiner pointed out.
     
    It suggests that when you are thinking about diet, you have to think about different nutrients not just count calories, Gardiner added.
     
    The study appeared in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

    MORE Health ARTICLES

    Fibre-rich Diet Helps You Lose Weight

    Fibre-rich Diet Helps You Lose Weight
    Certain fibres contained in prepared foods such as cereals, cereal bars, baking mixes, and drinks may cause a shift towards beneficial bacteria in the gut and assist in weight loss when made part of a long-term, daily diet, says a new research.

    Fibre-rich Diet Helps You Lose Weight

    Low Vitamin D levels may lead to early death

    Low Vitamin D levels may lead to early death
    Vitamin D deficiency is not just bad for your bone health, it can also result in various other diseases leading to an early death, research shows.

    Low Vitamin D levels may lead to early death

    Feeling demoralised bad for your heart

    Feeling demoralised bad for your heart
    Vital exhaustion, the combination of fatigue, increased irritability, and feeling demoralised, may raise a healthy man or woman's risk of first-time cardiovascular...

    Feeling demoralised bad for your heart

    Young women smokers at chronic period pain risk

    Young women smokers at chronic period pain risk
    Women who take up smoking during their teenage years run a significantly heightened risk of developing chronic severe period pain, finds new research....

    Young women smokers at chronic period pain risk

    Lowering cholesterol with drugs good for heart: Study

    Lowering cholesterol with drugs good for heart: Study
    A popular but controversial cholesterol drug called Ezetimibe has been found to lower the number of cardiovascular events by 6.4 percent when administered...

    Lowering cholesterol with drugs good for heart: Study

    Common antibacterial in soap may harm liver

    Common antibacterial in soap may harm liver
    Long-term exposure to triclosan, found in soaps, shampoos, toothpastes and many other household items, may cause liver fibrosis and cancer, an alarming study suggests....

    Common antibacterial in soap may harm liver