Humans tend to have a lot of food cravings, especially for tasty foodstuff. Cravings for fatty food never end unless one is on a healthy diet. Recent research proved that cravings for fatty food are linked to the gut-brain connection.
Cravings for Fatty Food
Food craving is common, especially if the food contains fat. It plays a major role in the diet. Healthy oils and fats are important for nutrition. Omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids are the healthy fats required for the human body. Most people crave fatty foods because of their good taste and aroma.
Research says many people choose to eat fatty foods while they are experiencing extreme emotions like upset, depression, bored, and happiness. It becomes a comfort food and makes them feel and normalize their emotions. Margarine, lard, oil, and butter are mostly added to foods like popcorn and salads.
A maximum of fatty foods take time to digest and burn calories. These also contain tryptophan, an essential α-amino acid. The brain makes use of this tryptophan to generate serotonin.
Serotonin is the chemical messenger between the nerve cells of the brain and the whole body. It plays an important role in terms of all emotions: mood, sleep, digestion, bone health, sexual desire, blood clotting, and nausea.
Gut-Brain Connection
Have you ever felt butterflies in your stomach? This sensation denotes that there is a connection between the brain and the gut.
The relation between the gut and the brain is known as the gut-brain axis. The enteric and central nervous systems are connected by a bidirectional communication network. In addition to being anatomical, this also includes endocrine, humoral, metabolic, and immunological pathways for communication.
The Facts About Food Cravings
The recent study stated multiple pieces of information and broke the ideology of what we thought before. According to the research, taste buds are not the only reason for food cravings: there is a connection between the gut and brain that triggers the appetite for fatty foods.
“We live in unprecedented times, in which the overconsumption of fats and sugars is causing an epidemic of obesity and metabolic disorders,” the first author of the nature research Dr. Mengtong Li said, “If we want to control our insatiable desire for fat, science is showing us that the key conduit driving these cravings is a connection between the gut and the brain.”
The fat entering the intestine provokes a specific signal which initiates the craving for fatty foods. This is according to the study at Columbia’s Lukerman institute, where scientists experimented on mice. They also found that glucose activates a particular gut-brain circuit that communicates to the brain in the presence of internal sugar.
When they blocked the activity of the cells using a drug, it is found that the mouse loses its appetite for fat.
Gut-brain connection depression
When you feel the body is stressed, you lose plenty of energy which affects the brain’s activity and muscles. Cortisol is released when the stress is burned out. This process affects the gut microbiome. The primary stress hormone that increases blood glucose levels is cortisol.
Two bacteria, Morganella and Klebsiella, which infect hospitalized patients and cause illnesses, were studied for their effects on depression.