![\"Scientists](\"http:\/\/www.massarate.ma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/brain-neurons.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
British scientists have found a brain mechanism they think may drive our desire for glucose-rich food and say the discovery could one day lead to better treatments for obesity.<\/p>\n
In experiments using rats, researchers at Imperial College London found a mechanism that appears to sense how much glucose is reaching the brain and prompts animals to seek more if it detects a shortfall. In people, the scientists said, it may play a role in driving our preference for sweet and starchy foods.<\/p>\n
Glucose, a component of carbohydrates, is the main energy source used by brain cells.<\/p>\n
“Our brains rely heavily on glucose for energy,.. but in our evolutionary past it would have been hard to come by. So we have a deep-rooted preference for glucose-rich foods and seek them out,” said James Gardiner, who led the study and published its findings in the Journal of Clinical Investigation on Monday.<\/p>\n
Gardiner’s team started with a hypothesis that an enzyme called glucokinase, involved in sensing glucose in the liver and pancreas, might play a role in driving glucose desire. Glucokinase is found in part of the brain called the hypothalamus, which regulates various functions including food intake.<\/p>\n
In their experiments they first found that when rats go 24 hours without eating, glucokinase activity in an appetite-regulating center in the hypothalamus increases sharply.<\/p>\n
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 reduced, they consumed less glucose.<\/p>\n
Gardiner suggested that in people it might be possible to reduce glucose cravings by changing the diet, and said a drug that could act on this system may potentially prevent obesity.<\/p>\n
“People are likely to have different levels of this enzyme, so different things will work for different people,” he said in a statement about the study.<\/p>\n
“For some people, eating more starchy foods at the start of a meal might be a way to feel full more quickly by targeting this system, meaning they eat less overall.”<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" British scientists have found a brain mechanism they think may drive our desire for glucose-rich food and say the discovery could one day lead to better treatments for obesity. In experiments using rats, researchers at Imperial College London found a mechanism that appears to sense how much glucose is reaching the brain and prompts animals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":35791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[469],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.massarate.ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35780"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.massarate.ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.massarate.ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.massarate.ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.massarate.ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.massarate.ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.massarate.ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.massarate.ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.massarate.ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.massarate.ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}