Fast food leads to overeating and obesity

Scientists from the Greek clinic Laiko have added another justification for the benefits of a leisurely meal: rapid absorption of food limits the production of hormones in the gastrointestinal tract that cause a feeling of satiety. A decrease in the release of these hormones in most cases can lead to overeating.
Most readers are most likely familiar with the slogan from the novel "12 chairs": "By chewing food carefully, you help society." Empirically, it has long been known, in particular, that a leisurely meal allows you to feel full in time and is recommended as one of the methods of prevention and treatment of obesity.

A new study offers a possible explanation for the relationship that exists between the speed of eating and overeating. Scientists have managed to demonstrate that the speed of the food intake process can affect the production of special hormones in the gastrointestinal tract, signaling to the brain that what has been eaten is quite enough - it's time to stop.

In the last few years, researchers studying gastrointestinal ("gastrointestinal") hormones, such as peptide YY (PYY) and glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1), have concluded that their release after eating affects some parts of the brain, causing a feeling of satiety and suspension of nutrition. However, all this time, the dependence of the concentration of "appetite hormones" on the speed of the food intake process remained outside the field of research of scientists.

During the experiment, participants were asked to eat 300 ml of ice cream – but at different speeds. The researchers took blood samples from them to determine the levels of glucose, insulin, plasma lipids and gastrointestinal hormones before the experiment and within 3.5 hours after its start at half-hour intervals. As a result, it was found that participants who "stretched pleasure" for 30 minutes showed maximum levels of the hormones PYY and GLP-1, and also experienced a greater sense of satiety.

"The findings shed light on one aspect of the problem of overeating: under the pressure of life circumstances, people are forced to eat quickly, as they have to and where they have to, as a rule, in larger quantities than before," the authors, led by Dr. Alexander Kokkinos, summarize in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

So the advice instilled in us from childhood – "fast food leads to obesity" may indeed have a physiological background.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru according to Science Daily: Eating Quickly Is Associated With Overeating, Study Indicates09.11.2009