INFORMATION:
This work was supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Grant #2012068, the American Heart Association, and the SC CTSI (NIH/NCRR/NCATS) Award #UL1TR000130.
Media Contact
USC Health Sciences Public Relations & Marketing,
Leslie Ridgeway or Alison Trinidad
Email: lridgewa@usc.edu
alison.trinidad@usc.edu
(323) 442-2823
ACNP, founded in 1961, is a professional organization of more than 700 leading scientists, including four Nobel Laureates. The mission of ACNP is to further research and education in neuropsychopharmacology and related fields in the following ways: promoting the interaction of a broad range of scientific disciplines of brain and behavior in order to advance the understanding of prevention and treatment of disease of the nervous system including psychiatric, neurological, behavioral and addictive disorders; encouraging scientists to enter research careers in fields related to these disorders and their treatment; and ensuring the dissemination of relevant scientific advances.
Brain reward circuits respond differently to 2 kinds of sugar
2014-12-10
(Press-News.org) Phoenix, AZ (December 10th, 2014) - The brain responds differently to two kinds of sugar, according to a report today at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology annual meeting in Phoenix Arizona. The study suggests that fructose heightens the response of brain reward circuits to food cues, promoting feeding behavior.
Currently, roughly two out of three U.S. adults are overweight and one out of three is obese. Changes in lifestyle and dietary intake during the past quarter century are thought to be the main culprits, with the increase in fructose consumption of particular concern. Fructose is the simple sugar found in fruit, but it is added to many foods as a "refined sugar" in the form of high-fructose corn syrup. By comparison, glucose, the primary energy source for the body, is usually produced through the breakdown of complex carbohydrates. Fructose ingestion produces smaller increases in circulating satiety hormones than glucose ingestion. Further, administration of fructose directly into the brain provokes feeding in rodents, whereas glucose administered this way promotes satiety, or the feeling of being full. Preliminary studies in people have also shown that glucose reduces activity in the hypothalamus, an event that is associated with metabolic satiety, whereas fructose does not.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Kathleen Page at the Keck School of Medicine and her colleagues in the Department of Psychology at the University of Southern California extended this work. They examined brain responses and motivation to eat when research volunteers viewed images of food (like chocolate cake) after they drank a beverage containing either glucose or fructose. The participants were 24 young men and women, 16 to 25 years of age. They viewed images of food during fMRI scans of their brains and reported how much they wanted to eat. The food cues produced activation in the nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain's "reward circuit", and increased the desire for food. Activation in the nucleus accumbens was greater after consuming the fructose drink compared to the glucose drink. The fructose drink also resulted in greater ratings of hunger and motivation to eat compared to the glucose drink. These neural and behavioral responses to high-calorie food stimuli could promote eating, and more so after consuming fructose compared to glucose.
These studies have important public health implications in a society that is inundated with high-sugar foods and tantalizing food stimuli. They suggest that consumption of fructose may promote overeating.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Alcohol-control law may curb partner abuse
2014-12-10
PISCATAWAY, NJ - Communities with fewer places to buy or drink alcohol also tend to have lower rates of intimate partner violence, new evidence suggests.
The research, published in the January issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, suggests that laws limiting what is called "alcohol outlet density" could offer one way to address violence within intimate relationships.
States and communities throughout the United States have enacted various laws to reduce excessive use of alcohol, including limiting outlet density, limiting hours and days of sale, and ...
Saving old information can boost memory for new information
2014-12-10
The simple act of saving something, such as a file on a computer, may improve our memory for the information we encounter next, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research suggests that the act of saving helps to free up cognitive resources that can be used to remember new information.
Our findings show that people are significantly better at learning and remembering new information when they save previous information," says psychological scientist and study author Benjamin Storm of ...
Drug developed at Pitt proves effective against antibiotic-resistant 'superbugs'
2014-12-10
PITTSBURGH, Dec. 9, 2014 - A treatment pioneered at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Vaccine Research (CVR) is far more effective than traditional antibiotics at inhibiting the growth of drug-resistant bacteria, including so-called "superbugs" resistant to almost all existing antibiotics, which plague hospitals and nursing homes.
The findings, announced online in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and funded by the National Institutes of Health, provide a needed boost to the field of antibiotic development, which has been limited in the last four ...
Can organic crops compete with industrial agriculture?
2014-12-10
Berkeley -- A systematic overview of more than 100 studies comparing organic and conventional farming finds that the crop yields of organic agriculture are higher than previously thought. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, also found that certain practices could further shrink the productivity gap between organic crops and conventional farming.
The study, to be published online Wednesday, Dec. 10, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, tackles the lingering perception that organic farming, while offering an environmentally ...
Experts call for faster mobilization of 'overlooked' survivors to contain Ebola epidemic
2014-12-10
In an editorial published online today in the International Journal of Epidemiology, experts from the Departments of Psychiatry and Epidemiology at Columbia University, New York, are calling for survivors of the Ebola epidemic to be mobilised in a bid to hasten containment of the disease.
We already know that the current Ebola outbreak is unique in its magnitude and for its dispersion in dense, mobile populations. Physicians and nurses face high mortality, and foreign aid in the form of medical supplies and staff continues to be unequal to the scope of the problem. With ...
You are what you eat -- if you're a coral reef fish
2014-12-10
In a world first study researchers have found a coral-eating fish that disguises its smell to hide from predators.
"For many animals vision is less important than their sense of smell," says study lead author Dr Rohan Brooker from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) at James Cook University.
"Because predators often rely on odors to find their prey, even visually camouflaged animals may stick out like a sore thumb if they smell strongly of 'food'." Dr Brooker says.
The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, ...
Insulin dosage for type 2 diabetes linked with increased death risk
2014-12-10
In a report published today in the journal of Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, researchers from Cardiff University were also able to show a correlation between patients treated with a higher dosage of insulin and a raised risk of cancer development, heart attacks and stroke.
Researchers identified these trends by scrutinizing the medical history of 6,484 patients with type 2 diabetes extracted from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). Patients were on average aged 64 at the beginning of the study in 2000, and were followed for an average of 3 years from ...
Fathering offspring is more than just a race to the egg
2014-12-10
Fathering offspring is more than just a race to the egg
Longer sperm are better at fertilising eggs, study reveals
But females also influence a male's fertilising success
Research may produce clues to understanding human fertility
The chance of a male fathering offspring may not be a simple race to the egg, but is influenced by the length of the male's sperm, say scientists from the University of Sheffield.
Using a captive population of zebra finches, the researchers carried out sperm competition experiments between pairs of males, where one male consistently ...
Annual NHS spend on management consultancy has doubled since 2010
2014-12-10
Annual NHS spending on management consultancy has doubled from £313m to £640m between 2010 and 2014, despite a promise by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley to 'slash' spending after the 2010 election, reveals an article in The BMJ this week.
This is enough to run three medium sized hospitals or employ about 2000 extra nurses, says David Oliver, a former clinical director at the Department of Health, who obtained the figures through a Freedom of Information request.
"In times of war, arms dealers, rebuilders, and racketeers profit from the chaos," he writes. ...
Can doctors be trained in a 48-hour working week?
2014-12-10
Since August 2009 all UK trainee doctors have been restricted to a 48 hour week, but some say this has had negative effects on the quantity and quality of medical training. Is there any evidence to substantiate these fears? Doctors discuss the issue in The BMJ this week.
Andrew Hartle and Sarah Gibb of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland find no evidence that implementation of the European Working Time Directive has led to a decline in the quality of training.
They point out that several reviews on the impact of restricting working time have ...