WASHINGTON- Researchers found that eating high-calorie diet under stress could result in more weight gain than eating the same diet in a stress-free condition.
The study published on Thursday in the journal Cell Metabolism revealed a molecular pathway in the brain, controlled by insulin, which drives the additional weight gain under stress.
“This study indicates that we have to be much more conscious about what we’re eating when we’re stressed, to avoid a faster development of obesity,” said Herbert Herzog, head of the Eating Disorders laboratory at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research.
They found that at the center of this weight gain was a molecule called NPY, which the brain produces naturally in response to stress to stimulate eating in humans as well as mice.
“We discovered that when we switched off the production of NPY in the amygdala, weight gain was reduced. Without NPY, the weight gain on a high-fat diet with stress was the same as weight gain in the stress-free environment,” said Kenny Chi Kin Ip, the study’s lead author and a researcher at Herzog’s lab.