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Written by Amanda Wattson, MD
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Tuesday, 10 November 2009 |
Your mother's advice to slow down at meal time may have been wise after all: a new study suggests that shoveling down your food blocks the body's natural appetite-control process.
"Most of us have heard that eating fast can lead to
food overconsumption and obesity, and in fact some...studies have
supported this notion," Dr. Alexander Kokkinos, the lead researcher on
the study, said in a written statement.
What has been missing,
however, is biological evidence that a leisurely meal is better for
appetite control, according to Kokkinos and his colleagues at Athens
University Medical School in Greece and the Imperial College London in
the UK.
To study the question, the researchers had 17 healthy
men eat a generous portion of ice cream under two different conditions:
in one, they ate the treat in two servings over 5 minutes; in the
other, they ate it in small servings over 30 minutes.
Although
the groups' feelings of fullness and hunger did not seem to differ, the
researchers found that when the men ate slowly, they showed higher
blood levels of two hormones -- peptide YY (PYY) and glucagon-like
peptide 1 (GLP-1) -- for roughly three hours after the meal.
Both
PYY and GLP-1 are released from the digestive tract as a "fullness"
signal to the brain, curbing appetite and calorie intake.
The
findings, to be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of
Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, give more weight to the
conventional wisdom that people should savor their food.
Some
previous research has found that when people take the time to chew
their food thoroughly and enjoy a meal, they tend to eat fewer calories
than when they have that same meal at an eat-and-run pace.
The reasons for that have been unclear, however.
"Our
study provides a possible explanation for the relationship between
speed eating and overeating by showing that the rate at which someone
eats may impact the release of gut hormones that signal the brain to
stop eating," Kokkinos said.
The findings are particularly
relevant in a time when many people are relying on fast food and
regularly eating on the run, according to Kokkinos. The study suggests
that slowing down at meal time could aid appetite control, and
ultimately weight control.
They are a possible scientific
explanation for "the warning we were given as children that 'wolfing
down your food will make you fat,'" Kokkinos said.
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