and Friends Newsletter

[Guest guest]

" and Friends Newsletter "

Never Give Up

Vol. 7 No. 1

October 2000

Take 15

From the Time you eat, say, a burrito, it takes your brain 10 whole

minutes to register to register the feeling of fullness in your tummy.

That's according to researchers from the University of Texas Health Science

Center at San . Using a special scanning technique called fMRI

(functional magnetic resonance imaging), the UT team could see the

hypothalamus - an appetite gland in the brain - change color at the 10

minute mark, as it got the news that dinner had not only been served but was

being eaten, too. (Actually, in this experiment a sugary drink was served.)

The researchers suggest that this is when the hypothalamus sends you the

signal to slow down with the eating.

But there's just one teeny-tiny atch: This study was on *normal weight*

folks. Earlier, the researchers had found that the brain's response to

eating takes *more* than 10 minutes to kick in for some people. And who were

those people> Yep, you guessed it - people who were overweight! Their

responses took up to 15 minutes. And that's not all. " Obesity slows the

hypothalamus, which increases obesity, which slows the hypothalamus even

more, " says UT professor T. Fox, MD. In other words, you get more

eatin' time till you feel full ... which means, well, you get the picture!

The skinny ones get skinnier, and the heavier ones ... uh-oh.

I'd say it's *never* been more important to take Dr. Fox's advice, which is

to eat slowly until the " saiety signal " (also known as that I-feel-full

feeling) arrives. So, c'mon, grab a seat at the dinner table! Let's take it

nice and easy for at *least* 10 minutes and most likely more! some food,

come conversation, some sips from your water glass ... we'll have your

hypothalamus down to fightin' weight in no time.