The brains of obese people hardly respond to food

The brains of obese people respond to food differently than people of a healthy weight. This was created by researchers from the US Yale University and UMC Amsterdam. The brains of the first group did not adequately register that they had eaten.

“This may explain why people who are seriously overweight often eat too much,” says lead researcher Meryl Searly, professor in Amsterdam and the US.

The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to measure the brain activity of 28 participants with a healthy body weight and 30 obese subjects, immediately after they had received 500 calories of food straight to the stomach, in which taste and appearance played no role. Brain activity changed in people of a healthy weight, but not in those who were obese.

The release of dopamine in the brain, measured using a so-called spectrophotometer, was much lower in people who were seriously overweight. Dopamine is a substance that affects, among other things, a sense of well-being and a sense of reward. Turns out, dopamine in obese people is barely measurable. So it could also be an explanation for the weight gain, but it hasn’t really been proven.

The brain responses remained the same even after losing weight. “This can contribute to the weight gain we often see after people successfully lose weight. If the brain doesn’t change with it, it’s hard to maintain healthy eating habits.”

The results have been published in the online scientific journal nature metabolism.