Spoonful of Sugar May Curb Stress, Obesity
Copyright 2005 Daily News Central
Sweets may decrease production of glucocorticoid, a
stress-related hormone that has been linked to obesity and
decreased immune response, researchers from the University of
Cincinnati (UC) have found.
"Glucocorticoids are produced when psychological or physical
stressors activate a part of the brain called the 'stress
axis,'" says Yvonne Ulrich-Lai, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in
the department of psychiatry.
"These hormones help an individual survive and recover from
stress, but have been linked to increased abdominal obesity and
decreased immune function when produced in large amounts," she
adds.
"Finding another way to affect the body's response to stress and
limit glucocorticoid production could alleviate some of these
dangerous health effects," Dr. Ulrich-Lai suggests.
The laboratory findings were presented on November 15 at the
annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, DC.
Psychological and Physical Stress
Dr. Ulrich-Lai and a team of researchers from the department of
psychiatry showed that when laboratory rats chose to eat or
drink sweet snacks their bodies produced lower levels of
glucocorticoid.
"The sweets we are talking about are not the low-calorie,
sugar-substitute variety," says Dr. Ulrich-Lai. "We actually
found that sugar snacks, not artificially sweetened snacks, are
better 'self-medications' for the two most common types of
stress -- psychological and physical."
Psychological stress could involve such things as public
speaking, being threatened, or coping with the death of a loved
one.
Examples of physical stress are injury, illness, or prolonged
exposure to cold.
No Weight Increase Observed
For the study, researchers gave adult male rats free access to
food and water, and also offered them a small amount of either a
sugar drink, an artificially sweetened drink, or water twice a
day.
After two weeks, the rats were given a physical and
psychological stress challenge. Following both types of stress,
rats that had consumed the sugar drink had lower glucocorticoid
levels than those that drank the water. Those drinking the
artificially sweetened drink showed only slightly reduced
glucocorticoid levels.
Although the researchers were not studying the health effects of
the sweetened drinks, they did not see a body-weight increase in
the rats consuming the sugar drinks.
The next step will be to determine how these sweetened drinks
are decreasing glucocorticoid production, notes James Herman,
PhD, co-author, professor and stress neurobiologist in the
department of psychiatry.
"We need to find out if there are certain parts of the brain
that control the response to stress," he says, "then determine
if the function of these brain regions are changed by sugar
snacking."