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Overeating is the brain's fault
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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If you hope that by eating cakes, chips and soda your weight will not change and the kilograms will not be “deposited”, then you are in vain. The belief that you can lose the extra kilograms sometime later can lead to you gaining a decent amount of weight, which will be very difficult to fight. Therefore, think a hundred times before you eat another portion of chips, sweets or drink a glass of “colored” soda, because it is a portion of high-calorie food that can one day trigger irreversible processes in your brain that will provoke obesity.
A team of researchers led by Terry Davidson, director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience at American University, argues that excessive consumption of saturated fats and refined carbohydrates threatens to prime our brains for further overeating.
According to Professor Davidson, the culprit is the hippocampus, a part of the brain responsible for learning, memory and suppression of memories.
Scientists assume that the mechanism of action of "bad" fats and carbohydrates occurs as follows: under the influence of these substances, the hippocampus suppresses thoughts about the harm of those products that a person consumes. This is why lovers of not very healthy food, especially those with extra pounds, eat much more than the norm.
"A person gets into a vicious circle: he overeats, thereby setting the brain up for further overeating, and each time he eats more and more," comments Professor Davidson. "If a person "feeds" the brain with such food, then it is not surprising that the process of obesity begins in his body."
The results of the scientists' research do not mean that fighting excess weight is useless or impossible. However, those who have started to monitor their diet should not relax and even sometimes, as an incentive, allow themselves "delicacies" from the previous menu.
It is possible to get rid of kilograms, but it is unlikely that it is possible to return the hippocampus to its normal functioning, so those who have embarked on the path of “correction” must daily fight old habits and suppress the habit of overeating.
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