PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Stress early in life leads to adulthood anxiety and preference for 'comfort foods'

2013-07-30
(Press-News.org) 7/30/13, New Orleans, LA. Research to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), the foremost society for research into all aspects of eating and drinking behavior, suggests that exposure to stress in the first few days of life increases stress responses, anxiety and the consumption of palatable "comfort" foods in adulthood.

"Comfort foods" have been defined as the foods eaten in response to emotional stress, and are suggested to contribute to the obesity epidemic. Hormonal responses to chronic stress in adulthood seem to play a role in the increased preference for this type of food, especially in women.

In this study, we aimed at verifying if an exposure to stress very early during development could also lead to increased consumption of comfort food in adult life, and if increased anxiety and stress responses were persistently affected by early adversity. Litters of rats were subjected to a protocol of reduced nesting material (Early–Life Stress) or standard care (Controls), in the first days of life. In adulthood, behavioral anxiety and stress reaction were measured. Preference for comfort food was measured over four days in a computerized system, in which the mean intake over approximately every second is calculated by a peripheral computer (BioDaq, Research Diets®).

Early-Life Stress increased adulthood anxiety, increased the hormonal response to stress (corticosterone) and increased the preference for comfort foods, even after a period of chronic exposure to this type of food.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate that comfort food preference could be enhanced by such an early stress exposure", says lead researcher Tania Machado. The anxiety and altered food preferences seen in these rats exposed to neonatal adversity can be related to the described changes in the hormonal response to stress. Therefore, in neonatally stressed rats, a greater consumption of "comfort foods" is possibly used as a way to alleviate anxiety symptoms (self-medication). Future studies in this area may have implications for primary care on childhood nutrition in vulnerable populations (e.g. low birth weight or children with a history of neonatal adversities).

INFORMATION:

The research was funded by FAPERGS, National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development (CNPq), FIPE/HCPA and Foundation for the Coordination of Higher Education and Graduate Training (CAPES).

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Taste preference changes in different life stages of rats

2013-07-30
7/30/13, New Orleans, LA. Research to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), the foremost society for research into all aspects of eating and drinking behavior, found that aging elicits changes in taste preferences and that such changes appear to be independent of taste nerve activity. In humans and animals aging decreases dietary and energy requirements and it is generally believed that reduced consumption is related to alterations in taste preference. However, the mechanisms underlying an age-induced shift in taste ...

Fetal 'programming' of sweet taste's elicited pleasure

2013-07-30
7/30/13, New Orleans, LA. Research to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), the foremost society for research into all aspects of eating and drinking behavior, suggests that feeding behavior and preferences may be shaped very early during development, even during fetal life. Newborns of different species react to the sweet taste demonstrating facial expressions of pleasure, such as licking (tongue protusions) and thumb sucking. These "hedonic" responses are related to brain activity in regions that respond to pleasure ...

A maternal junk food diet alters development of opioid pathway in the offspring

2013-07-30
7/30/13, New Orleans, LA. Research to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), the foremost society for research into all aspects of eating and drinking behavior, shows that eating a junk-food diet during pregnancy changes the development of the opioid signalling pathway in the baby's brain and permanently alters the way this system operates after birth. Opioids are chemicals which are released when we eat foods that are high in fat and sugar, and that are responsible for causing the release of another 'feel good' chemical, ...

Environmental awareness develops at an early age

2013-07-30
José Domingo Villarroel, a researcher at the Teacher Training College in Bilbao (UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country) has studied the capacity to differentiate between living and non-living beings and how this relates to environmental awareness. 118 girls and boys between the ages of 4 and 7 from public primary schools in Plentzia, Urduliz and Sopelana participated in the research and were interviewed by Villarroel himself. He himself says that the work was very laborious, "but enjoyable and what is more, the results were very striking." Each interview consisted ...

Severe low blood sugar occurs often in patients with Type 2 diabetes

2013-07-30
OAKLAND, Calif., July 30, 2013 — Patients with diabetes who take certain types of medications to lower their blood sugar sometimes experience severe low blood sugar levels, whether or not their diabetes is poorly or well controlled, according to a new study by Kaiser Permanente and Yale University School of Medicine. The finding, published in the current online issue of Diabetes Care, challenges the conventional wisdom that hypoglycemia is primarily a problem among diabetic patients with well-controlled diabetes (who have low average blood sugar levels). Low blood sugar ...

Sanford-Burnham researchers uncover how a potent compound kills prostate cancer cells

2013-07-30
A JOLLA, Calif., July 30, 2013 — One major hallmark of cancer cells is their ability to survive under stressful conditions. A new study spearheaded by researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute reveals how a promising anticancer compound called SMIP004 specifically kills prostate cancer cells by compromising their ability to withstand environmental stress. The study, recently published in Oncotarget, uncovers novel mechanisms of anticancer activity and could lead to the development of more effective therapies for advanced and hard-to-treat forms of prostate ...

A smart way of using testosterone to prevent muscle wasting

2013-07-30
New Australian research suggests that a small dose of testosterone directed solely to the liver stimulates protein synthesis, likely preventing muscle loss and wasting, and potentially promoting muscle growth. The researchers believe they have developed a safe and effective treatment for men and women, that could prevent the muscle wasting associated with many chronic diseases and with ageing. Dr Vita Birzniece and Professor Ken Ho, from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research, showed in healthy postmenopausal women that a small dose of the male hormone testosterone ...

How to learn successfully even under stress

2013-07-30
Whenever we have to acquire new knowledge under stress, the brain deploys unconscious rather than conscious learning processes. Neuroscientists at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum have discovered that this switch from conscious to unconscious learning systems is triggered by the intact function of mineralocorticoid receptors. These receptors are activated by hormones released in response to stress by the adrenal cortex. The team of PD Dr Lars Schwabe from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, together with colleagues from the neurology department at the university clinic ...

Picosecond accurate slow-motion confirms oxide materials exhibit considerably faster switching properties than do semi-conductors

2013-07-30
This news release is available in German. Materials that have the ability to switch between being good conductors and being good insula-tors are considered good potential candidates for electronic building blocks – for use in transis-tors, for example. The iron oxide magnetite is the best known representative of this class of ma-terials. At low temperatures, magnetite has insulating properties; at high temperatures, the oxide is a good conductor. This switching mechanism however happens so quickly that it's been im-possible until now to fully grasp it on an atomic ...

Psychotherapy via the Internet as good as if not better than face-to-face consultations

2013-07-30
This news release is available in German. Does psychotherapy via the Internet work? For the first time, clinical researchers from the University of Zurich have studied whether online psychotherapy and conventional face-to-face therapy are equally effective in experiments. Based on earlier studies, the Zurich team assumed that the two forms of therapy were on a par. Not only was their theory confirmed, the results for online therapy even exceeded their expectations. Six therapists treated 62 patients, the majority of whom were suffering from moderate depression. The ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Innovative liquid biopsy test uses RNA to detect early-stage cancer

New quantum record: Transmon qubit coherence reaches millisecond threshold

How Germany’s 2021 floods could have been even worse

Study traces evolutionary origins of important enzyme complex

Tiny antibody has big impact on deadly viruses

Scientists find new way to control electricity at tiniest scale

Heat and heavy metals are changing the way that bees buzz

What’s behind the enormous increase in early-onset gastrointestinal cancers?

Pharmacogenomics expert advances precision medicine for bipolar disorder

Brazilian researcher explores centenarian stem cells for aging insights

Dr. Xuyu Qian's breakthrough analysis of 18 million brain cells advances understanding of human brain development

Gene networks decode human brain architecture from health to glioma

How artificial light at night damages brain health and metabolism

For ultrasound, ultra-strength not always a good thing

Matching your workouts to your personality could make exercising more enjoyable and give you better results

Study shows people perceive biodiversity

Personality type can predict which forms of exercise people enjoy

People can accurately judge biodiversity through sight and sound

People diagnosed with dementia are living longer, global study shows

When domesticated rabbits go feral, new morphologies emerge

Rain events could cause major failure of Waikīkī storm drainage by 2050

Breakthrough in upconversion luminescence research: Uncovering the energy back transfer mechanism

Hidden role of 'cell protector' opens cancer treatment possibilities

How plants build the microbiome they need to survive in a tough environment

Depression due to politics and its quiet danger to democracy addressed in new book 'The Sad Citizen'

International experts and patients unite to help ensure all patients are fully informed before consenting to new surgical procedures

Melting glaciers could trigger more explosive eruptions globally, finds research

Nearly half of U.S. grandchildren live within 10 miles of a grandparent

Study demonstrates low-cost method to remove CO₂ from air using cold temperatures, common materials

Masonic Medical Research Institute (MMRI) welcomes 13 students to prestigious Summer Fellowship program

[Press-News.org] Stress early in life leads to adulthood anxiety and preference for 'comfort foods'