Researchers from the
University of Cincinnati (UC) have found that eating or
drinking sweets may decrease the production of the stress-related
hormone glucocorticoid--which has been linked to obesity
and decreased immune response.
"Glucocorticoids are produced
when psychological or physical stressors activate a part
of the brain called the 'stress axis,'" said 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.
"Finding another way to affect
the body's response to stress and limit glucocorticoid
production could alleviate some of these dangerous health
effects."
The laboratory findings were presented
during a poster session Tuesday, Nov. 15, at the annual
Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, D.C.
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.
She said that sweets--especially
those made from sugar, not artificial sweetener--might
do the trick.
"The sweets we are talking
about are not the low-calorie, sugar-substitute variety,"
said 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
things such 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.
During the study, researchers gave
adult male rats free access to food and water and also
offered them a small amount of sugar drink, 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.
Dr. Ulrich-Lai noted that although
her team was not studying the health effects of the sweetened
drinks, they did not notice a body-weight increase in
the rats consuming the sugar drinks.
James Herman, PhD, co-author, professor
and stress neurobiologist in the department of psychiatry,
said the next step will be to determine how these sweetened
drinks are decreasing glucocorticoid production.
"We need to find out if there
are certain parts of the brain that control the response
to stress, then determine if the function of these brain
regions are changed by sugar snacking," he said.
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