A research team composed of scientists from Harvard Medical School and Tufts University has published a report suggesting that the brain can be retrained to prefer healthy food over and pick them junk food. Senior author, Susan Roberts, says that people are not naturally inclined to loving unhealthy, high calorie food. It is just that the brain, she says, is conditioned over time to like these kinds of products over healthy food choices because this is the natural response to eating these types of foods repeatedly.
If this is the case, then scientists faced the question of whether the parts of the brain that reinforces the "addiction" can be reversed. Based on this study, researchers say that the brain is "plastic" in relation to food addiction. It, therefore, cannot be hardwired to like only unhealthy food and it's preferences can be reversed with the proper training.
The researchers conducted the study by analyzing a group of obese and overweight subjects who were all subjected to brain scans at the beginning and at the end of the program. Researchers focused on the subjects' responses in the reward centers of the brain after being shown images of healthy and unhealthy food. The reward centers are the parts of the brain associated to learning and addiction.
One group was enrolled in a fitness program designed by the researchers, and the control group was not. After the 6-month program, the group who were following the fitness regimen showed an average weight loss of 6 kg, while the control group gained an average of 2 kg. The end of program brain scans showed that there were significant changes in the reward center activity of the subjects that followed the fitness program. These changes showed that the subjects were finding it more rewarding and enjoyable to have healthier food than they did at the beginning of the study. And researchers were able to conclude that training the brain to reverse junk food addiction and increasing a liking for healthy food is the ideal combination for achieving sustained weight loss.
