Women Cannot Control Their Hunger As Well As Men, Study Shows

[Adsos Letter]

SOURCE: ScienceDaily (Jan. 22, 2009)


A ground-breaking brain-imaging study at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory shows that men, but not women, are able to control their brain’s response to their own favorite foods. The study, which will be published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of January 19, 2009, may help explain why rates of obesity and eating disorders are higher among women than men, and why women typically have more difficulty losing weight.

“Our findings may help us understand the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the ability to control food intake, and suggest new pharmacological methods or other interventions to help people regulate eating behavior and maintain a healthy weight,” said Gene-Jack Wang, lead author on the study. “The surprising finding of a difference between genders in the ability to inhibit the brain’s response to food and hunger will certainly merit further study.”

The scientists used positron emission tomography (PET) scanning to monitor brain activity in 13 female and 10 male volunteers. In this method, a form of glucose “tagged” with a radioactive tracer molecule is injected into the blood stream while subjects lie in the PET scanner. The scanner tracks the tracer’s signal to monitor the uptake and use of the glucose by various regions of the brain. All study subjects were of normal body weight and had fasted for nearly 20 hours before each of three separate scans, performed in random order.

Each brain image shows the change in brain metabolism when subjects were asked to inhibit their response to food during food stimulation compared with when they were not told to inhibit their response. Two brain sections at different levels of the brain are shown for each group (women, men, and women vs. men). Top row, women: No color indicates that women had no significant differences in brain activity between the two conditions. Middle row, men: Blue colored areas were significantly less active when men were told to inhibit their response to food than they were without inhibition. Third row, women vs. men: Orange color indicates areas where men showed greater decrements with inhibition than women. These brain regions are involved in emotional regulation, conditioning, and the motivation to eat.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090121211340.htm


:popcorn:

[enlightenment]

1. Personally, I prefer to interpret this study as showing that

men's brains aren't evolved enough to know when they're hungry.

If it weren't for us women feeding them regular, they'd starve . . .
:evilgrin:


*and I'm joking, so get off your high horse, guys*

edited to remove an extraneous apostrophe.

[Believing Is Art]

3. I will agree with that!

My bf likes to pick on me the times I'll spend a few hours cooking for him and not eating anything myself. I'm pretty sure I get more calories from the cooking fumes than he gets from eating the food though . . . :(

[petronius]

42. My wife would completely agree with that - it's a standing joke (with a

large kernel of truth) around here that I never know I'm hungry until she fixes something for herself. Then I'm starving...

:)

[defendandprotect]

2. Looked at article quickly and didn't see any mention of food they used . . .

Organic . . . ??

Part of the supposition re obesity is that we are not eating whole foods--

not eating foods which supply sufficient nutrition because of the way it is grown

with pesticides/chemicals, etc.

You eat -- but your body still signals need for NUTRITION . . .

Brain is also first to suffer from poor nutrition --

Our problems may not simply be with obesity but lack of intelligence!

Starting with a lack of breast feeding --

Colostrum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Effects in...|Adult consumption|Hyper Immunized...|External links
Colostrum (also known as beestings or first milk or "immune milk") is a form of milk produced by the mammary glands of mammals in late pregnancy and the few days after giving birth.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colostrum - Cached

We need a Colostrum Revolution ---

As I understand it, it's only available for the first 24 hours after delivery --

HOWEVER, you use the hormones/chemicals from breastmilk into your old age -- 80's!!

[JDPriestly]

15. Sounds right to me.

A lot of empty carbs like sweet, white, soft bread, rolls, etc. leave people hungry after a couple of hours.

[BlooInBloo]

4. (shrug) I'm pretty much always hungry.

[Adsos Letter]

5. Me too...

It's only my type II diabetes that has forced me to pay attention to my eating habits.

[BlooInBloo]

7. :) I'm lucky - I get to indulge. :)

[Believing Is Art]

6. I haven't had more than 1000 cals/day in . . . I don't know how long

I'm starving 24/7 :(

[BlooInBloo]

8. Holy jeebus. Is it even possible to live with that little?

:rofl:

I kid.

[Believing Is Art]

11. Not really

1000 cals/day are my indulgence days. I usually try to stay under 500. One month recently I didn't have more than 200 cals/day, but I was getting really sick so I had to stop that.

I'm pretty sure that earlier in life I was powered by a small black hole. The docs put me on steroids to keep my weight up and I could eat anything. That leveled off and I started watching what I ate better. Then I went on effexor for a month. In that month, I went from 108 to 127. After the first few pounds, I cut my caloric intake to 500 per day, then 200. I was exercising non-stop. I still kept gaining weight. After I hit 127, I told the docs there was no way in hell I was taking pills anymore. I've dropped some of the weight since then, but my metabolism seems permanently shot.

[Missy Vixen]

14. Please have your thyroid checked

I realize the steroids weren't a great thing, but thyroid disease may be a factor.

Julie

[Believing Is Art]

24. I don't think the steroids were a problem

I used to slip below 100 and that was too low for my height. It seems pretty normal that my metabolism slowed down when I hit mid-20's, and I've been off the steroids for awhile and had no trouble managing my weight until I used effexor. The docs told me that some small percentage of effexor users gain a lot of weight and have a hard time losing it or simply can't lose it, even after they stopped taking the drug.

I know that even at my current weight (120-122), I'm still normal, maybe even thin by some standards. It's just frustrating as hell that I'm a lot heavier than I have ever been, and to maintain this weight I can't eat more than a few hundred calories a day. And I might as well buy stock in Ben-Gay the way I'm going through it.

[Eurobabe]

33. How tall are you?

I agree with the previous poster, have your thyroid checked. Sounds like a malfunction to me. When I was younger, I could eat anything I wanted, ANYTHING, and maintain 125 on a 5'8" frame. When I hit 38, after my master's program and alot of personal stress my thyroid blew out, and I've been on meds ever since.

Unfortunately, Docs routinely try to put women on anti-depressants without thoroughly investigating the thyroid angle. They tried to tell me I needed ADs because depression runs in my family, well I opted for thyroid meddies (I was borderline hypothyroid) and guess what?? Within a couple months I felt terrific. My body was craving the thyroid hormone, that's all.

Good luck...:hug:

[Believing Is Art]

34. 5'4''

I've had some hormone checkups before, but I don't know if it was for my thyroid. Unfortunately I'm in grad school right now which means I'm limited to the school clinic. I'm suspicious of them . . . some hormones that had always been high according to my previous doc were magically normal as soon as I started seeing someone at the school clinic . . .

[mrreowwr_kittty]

9. Meh. It's too small of a sample size.

I'm not going to buy conclusions drawn from a total of 23 volunteers. If, when applied to a much larger group, the same results applied, then we'd still have to factor in cultural conditioning. It's possible that a large percentage of women are not attuned to their bodies' natural signals due to the constant barrage of dieting and thinness propaganda we are subjected to.

[Gonzo Gardener]

10. This explains why I can't say no to cheesecake!

:9

[Stellabella]

12. That makes sense evolutionarily.

Women need to be hungry so they can maintain a certain fat level and stay fertile.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

13. So how does that fit in with the other "evolutionary" narrative that men prefer thin women? nt

[Tartiflette]

16. Is that entirely true?

That narrative certainly does not apply to all cultures, and I believe that there is some evidence to suggest that there is an evolutionary preference for relatively wide hips. If there is a preference for thin, it may be that as we are naturally thinner in our youth, it is unconsciously registered as a sign of fertility. (there are other equally plausible explanations)

[mrreowwr_kittty]

18. Ahh..."we are naturally thinner in our youth". That must explain it.

:eyes:

[Tartiflette]

29. I did not say that was the case

I posited a potential explanation if that were true, while disagreeing that this preference for "thin" holds true for all cultures. I am fairl certain that median weight goes up as we get older (up to a certian age, of course) so while the word "naturally" might be debatable, it is something that might be worth consideration, rather than summary dismissal.

[BlooInBloo]

20. I have yet to meet a guy...

Who prefers the girl-who-looks-like-six-year-old-boy body type.

Maybe I just hang out with the wrong crowd, but I've never known where girls get such ideas.

If I wasn't so sick of hearing it, I'd laugh at all of the slurpilicious girls I've heard who talk about "I need to lose 20 pounds".

[mrreowwr_kittty]

22. If I weren't so sick of seeing men salivating over size 2 women

And actresses/models of that proportion dominating the representation of women in the MSM, I'd say you have a point.

[Tartiflette]

30. I agree with you, but..

We are all socialized to desire an ideal, and people respond to that socialization to varying degrees. The "ideal" has changed over time, even over the past 50 years, and could do so again. The MSM (and even much of the media outside the mainstream) has much responsibility to bear for this obsession with body shapes that are unobtainable for much of the population, and which may even be promoting a degree of unhealthiness.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

35. That's exactly what I'm saying

Yet you'll have men claiming that it's in their genes; that they're "hardwired" to prefer bone thin women.

[laconicsax]

27. The preference for 'thin women' is cultural, not evolutionary.

[LanternWaste]

38. I was under the impression...

I was under the impression that the male's generalized proclivity for thinner women was a relatively new social phenomenon... that until recently (post-industrial revolution) the Raphaelite woman was perceived as the apex of beauty for the female figure.

[Stellabella]

39. It's not 'thinner', it's body proportion.

If you have a waist thinner than chest and hips, that means you aren't pregnant by another man, and it means you're probably generally healthy and able to reproduce.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

41. That's funny since the best way to predict future fertility is past fertility

Defenders of the sexist status quo will always find some plausible-sounding "biological" justification for it but there's usually an equally plausible rebuttal.

[Stellabella]

43. Who's defending the 'sexist status quo'?

I've got a degree in Biology, so I learned this stuff. Do you have a science degree?

And with just men looking at women, there's no way to deduce any information about past fertility. The point is, is that woman pregnant NOW? Or is she available?

And read my post about the true meaning of body fat.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

45. I'm not saying you were

I'm saying that I've heard these "just so" evolutionary stories used to explain modern cultural phenomena for years now. The supposed link between waist-to-hip ratio and fertility and attractiveness has been debunked by legitimate scientists (the articles can be found in scientific journals) but the MSM is still enamored with it. Furthermore, while a few studies found relationship between WTH ratios and hormones that regulate fertility (others did not), none have found a correlation between breast size and fertility. Yet many men are attracted to women's breasts and certain breast sizes go in and out of fashion frequently.

BTW, I'm no biologist but I don't think I have to be one to realize that the study in the OP smells like a load of bullcrap.

[Stellabella]

46. Okay.

But considering that this was a peer-reviewed study published in a mainline scientific magazine, it has merit. These articles have to be really scrutinized in order to be accepted at all.

[Stellabella]

40. Oh, 'fat' in this sense doesn't mean 'overweight'.

It means you need a certain percentage of body fat to keep menstruating. That's about 22-23% body fat. Any lower, your hormones aren't produced properly and menses stop.

[cbc5g]

44. Easy, there is NO evolutionary narrative that men prefer thin women

That's a cultural phenomenon

[ismnotwasm]

17. Lost me at the eating disorder part

There are too many other serious considerations and the implication that it's hardwired--however soft pedaled-- is irresponsible.


A study involving 23 people is merely a set up for another grant, as suggested in the article.

While PET scans involving any topic are interesting, I wouldn't draw any solid conclusions. Remember the "God" part of the brain they found a few years back?

[mrreowwr_kittty]

21. External stimuli can have a big impact on brain chemistry.

In the case of women vs. men where eating is concerned I wouldn't be at all surprised if all the messages women get about food and weight circumvent natural impulses.

[EFerrari]

19. Their claims are obese.

:)

It's an interesting question, though.

[Eurobabe]

23. My husband disproves this theory

whether he is hungry or not, when he is watching TV, he raids the refrigerator -- then he complains he needs to drop 20 lbs! I told him to THINK about WHY he is chowing, are you hungry or just eating to eat.

Drink more water or eat soup! :hi:

[Adsos Letter]

31. ...soup?...

[Eurobabe]

32. yah, SOUP!

I saw this segment the other day on CNN about diets. They said that cultures who ate soup on a regular basis weighed less. It is nutritious, fills you up, and I've lost 5 lbs. this week alone by altering my eating habit at night. Eating light instead of regular meal. Soup. :D

[Political Heretic]

25. Does the study examine what triggers brain's responses?

Studies like these, that posit differences between men and women, are always problematic in certain ways. I'm not saying they are wrong. I'm saying they are problematic because in almost all cases they fail to adequately account for the ways that cultural conditioning impacts men and women in a society. Until the role of cultural gender stereotyping is more fully explored, its difficult to really answer important questions like: would women have a harder time controlling hunger than men if the cultural context in which both exist was different - i.e. men are not under pressure that women are under, in our patriarchical society, nor do they have the same sorts of cultural expectations - how does that contribute to stress and anxiety or even behavior patterns and do those factors weaken women's ability to control hunger?

No one answers those questions - they just note that there seems to be a scientific basis for observing that women have a harder time doing it than men. But then they go on to form all kinds of conclusions or theories that do not take into account the cultural and social factors that interplay with our biology.

[Political Heretic]

26. Science Daily has no business printing this headline.

A sample size of 23?

Sorry, but I'm finishing my masters degree and have been drowning in research and statistics courses -- a sample size of 23 is not generalizable!

So...study shows...absolutely nothing other than the fact that further research is warranted.

[eridani]

28. They are overlooking the obvious

Constant dieting (far more common among women than among men) really screws up natural regulatory systems.

[supernova]

36. yes, and so to artificial sweetners

You are telling your body you are eating sugar... but you are not. But, even after having a Diet Coke, your body is still craving the nutrition from sugar, so you eat some more. Probably something with simple sugars in it, to satisfy the craving.

You are better off eating a little bit of something sweet so your brain and body can move on.

[defendandprotect]

50. True . . . slows down metabolism ....for one.

Then, when you begin normal eating, you will actually be moved to regain weight

lost, plus more. You're body thinks there was a famine!

[Bu Megdi]

37. Indeed

Well said.

[alarimer]

47. A study of 23 people is so small as to be meaningless.

Get back to me when the sample size in 2300 or 23,000. Until then, it's bullshit.

[treestar]

48. Why does any study where the difference is gender work out to

favor men? Boy, those men are lucky. They are just born with so many advantages! :rofl:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

49. Amazing, idn't it? nt