It may seem obvious, but the faster you eat the more likely you are to overeat. Some observational studies support this notion. And you may know this – too well- from personal experience. A study, to appear in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, explains why eating fast may cause overeating. It has to do with hormones that act on the brain.
Eating is known to trigger the release of gut hormones, including peptide YY (PYY) and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), which act on the hypothalamus in the brain to regulate appetite. This new study, by researchers from Greece and the U.K., however, is the first to look at how the speed at which you eat influences the release of these appetite-regulating hormones.
The study included 17 healthy people who, on one day, ate a big bowl of ice cream (the “test meal”) quickly (within five minutes), after fasting overnight. On a second day, they ate the ice cream slowly (within 30 minutes). Blood samples were taken before eating and then every 30 minutes after, for about three hours, to measure changes in hormone levels. As expected, the subjects had higher PYY and GLP-1 levels, and some reported feeling more full, when they ate slowly, compared to when they ate quickly. This generally held true in both normal-weight and overweight people.
The bottom line. The findings don’t guarantee that if you eat slowly you will eat less or lose weight (the researchers did not test this). Actually, many people who overeat do so in response to environmental, social, and/or psychological factors, not because they are hungry. Still, as the authors conclude, “The warning that we were given as children that `wolfing down your food will make you fat’ may in fact have a physiological explanation.”
Source: Healthcommunities
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