Is stress making you unable to resist the temptation of carbohydrates?

Do you often find yourself unable to resist the temptation of delicious foods such as pizza and chocolate? It might not be entirely your fault. According to a new study published in Cell Reports by the National Institute for Physiological Sciences in Japan, the research team found that stress-related neural activation responses may increase an individual's craving for carbohydrates.

In the study, the authors used mice as an animal model for experiments and found that if a nerve known to be related to social stress response is activated, it will increase the mouse's appetite for carbohydrates. Compared with control mice, mice with activated glial nerves ate high-carbohydrate food three times faster and cut their intake of high-fat food by about half.

The authors say that many people complain that they eat too many sweets when they are under stress, but in addition to personal control, this may also be related to the activation of specific nerves.

The research was published in Cell Reports, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 706-721

This article is from ELSEVIER Global Pharmaceutical News