There may be a reason why "comfort foods" are so stuffed with carbohydrates: Scientists have recently discovered that pure sugar reduces the stress hormone, cortisol, in a way that artificial sweeteners, like aspartame, do not.
"These experimental findings support a metabolic-brain-negative feedback pathway that is affected by sugar and may make some people under stress more hooked on sugar and possibly more vulnerable to obesity and its related conditions," the researchers write in their study, published earlier this month in the Journal of Clinical and Endocrinology and Metabolism.
In the study, the research team looked at fMRI scans of participants solving difficult math problems. One group was fed sugar and another aspartame. The researchers found that those fed sugar showed a significant difference in the parts of the brain responsible for producing fight-or-flight responses, and a subsequent increase in cortisol found in their saliva—a common way of measuring stress.
[For more of this story, written by Gregory Ferenstein, go to http://www.psmag.com/health-an...r-when-were-stressed]
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