- Dutch researchers hope to develop food that tricks the brain into thinking we are full
- Could have an instant effect on the obese
By
Mark Prigg
|
Smart foods that tell the brain you have eaten enough could hold the key to beating obesity, researcher have claimed.
A Dutch team has already started work on the intelligent foods that could one day help the world beat obesity.
They hope the foods will contain a special chemical that mimics the message our gut sends the brain when it is full.
Intelligent food: Scientists hope to create snacks that can trick the brain into thinking the gut is full after just a few bites
By sending the message earlier, the brain can be fooled into not overeating.
‘We know nutrients interact with gut cells, which dispatch chemical messengers – hormones– to the brain to signal ‘stomach full’,» endocrinologist Jens Holst of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, told youris.com.
This messaging from our food to gut to brain is now being decoded to fight obesity.
Holst discovered a small molecule in the gut, called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1, which acts on parts of the brain that regulate appetite.
He is now involved with an EU funded research project, Full4Health, to try and find out exactly how the gut tells the brain when it is full.
A big problem: Scientists hope smart food could help deal with the global obesity crisis.
‘There is a raft of hormones, which are all satiety hormones, which will tend to help terminate a meal,’ said project coordinator Julian Mercer, obesity scientist at the University of Aberdeen, UK.
‘We don't know much about which nutrients are involved and whether we can manipulate how food interacts with those signalling systems and how those systems are integrated at different levels in the brain.’
The team hope their research could lead to drugs which mimic the message, and hope to eventually make food that can also contain the messages.
‘It would be even better if we could come up with smart food,’ says Mercer.
Recent research found Britain has one of the most sedentary populations on earth, with almost twice the proportion of people defined as ‘inactive’ as in neighbouring France.
The global figures reveal that even the Americans put Britain to shame when it comes to taking exercise.
In the UK, 63.3 per cent of the population fails to meet recommended levels of physical activity, increasing their risk of conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
By comparison, 40.5 per cent of US citizens are inactive, despite more than 30 per cent of them being obese.
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So if this article is about smart food….why are you showing me a picture of a Micky Ds burger?
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The brain already knows when it’s had enough! When you’re faced with a large portion you begin eating, then you feel, very clearly, a signal telling you you’ve had enough. At that point you choose whether to stop, or to stuff the rest in. But to claim that we don’t already have the signal is crazy: we do have it, just as animals do.
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nice idea, but it simply wont work imo. for a lot of obese people, its not about feeling full, its the emotional ‘high’ that the eating itself brings which they crave. you hear of it time and time again; gastric surgery patients doing themselves a damage, sometimes fatally, by relentlessly forcing food down, expanding their gullets because their stomachs are no longer large enough to accomodate that quantity of food. what is needed is mental support and retraining, like any other addiction. something to help them stop leaning on a damaging ‘crutch’ in times of stress etc, and boost will power. im terrible if left unsupervised with crisps, but i have the awareness to not buy them if i cant leave them alone 
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If people were smart enough themselves they would listen to their own brains which would automatically tell them they are full once the body had taken in enough food.
Although I do realise there are conditions such as prader willi syndrome which mean some people do not have this signal but but for the majority of people eating slowly and being conscious of what you eat helps.
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Should be a mandatory menu for the fat teenage single mums of this country.
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It is what we eat and when we eat which is important.
Most foods are big business related as are pharmaceuticals. Most programmes concerning healthy eating and living including the use of supplements are sponsored by these businesses to promote sales of their own products. Much good information is suppressed as it is counter productive to company targets.
More openness and transparency about what we eat and it’s effects on the body is needed. We have been fed mis-information for years now in the the interests
of business.
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Is the irony lost on these scientists? There are processes in the body that stop you eating when you are full. They have served humanity well for 2.4million years. However, for some reason now we have to add something to our food to stop us being hungry. Simple logical answer – eat real food (potential profit £0. Scientific answer – product a chemical to mimic real food (potential profits £billions.
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What a load of rubbish! Your brain already tells you when you are full, it’s just that overweight people eat so fast, that there override this signal. If you eat slowly, I mean really slowly, you will hear the signal.
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@ Winston Smith, Room 101, 27/7/2012 16:48 — Exactly, and well said!
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I am using Virtual Gastric Band app, I have lost 17 lbs in 6 weeks. I stop eating when I am full and have more energy, drink more water. It teaches you to listen to your bodies needs. So the Dutch are on to something, it’s just not news.
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