Improved thinking. Decreased appetite. Lowered blood pressure. The potential health benefits of dark chocolate keep piling up, and scientists are now homing in on what ingredients in chocolate might help prevent obesity, as well as type-2 diabetes. They found that one particular type of antioxidant in cocoa prevented laboratory mice from gaining excess weight and lowered their blood sugar levels. The report appears in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry.

Andrew P. Neilson and colleagues explain that cocoa, the basic ingredient of chocolate, is one of the most flavanol-rich foods around. That’s good for chocolate lovers because previous research has shown that flavanols in other foods such as grapes and tea can help fight weight gain and type-2 diabetes. But not all flavanols, which are a type of antioxidant, are created equal. Cocoa has several different kinds of these compounds, so Neilson’s team decided to tease them apart and test each individually for health benefits.

The scientists fed groups of mice different diets, including high-fat and low-fat diets, and high-fat diets supplemented with different kinds of flavanols. They found that adding one particular set of these compounds, known as oligomeric procyanidins (PCs), to the food made the biggest difference in keeping the mice’s weight down if they were on high-fat diets. They also improved glucose tolerance, which could potentially help prevent type-2 diabetes. “Oligomeric PCs appear to possess the greatest antiobesity and antidiabetic bioactivities of the flavanols in cocoa, particularly at the low doses employed for the present study,” the researchers state.

(Source: acs.org)

Cigarette smoking among obese women appears to interfere with their ability to taste fats and sweets, a new study shows. Despite craving high-fat, sugary foods, these women were less likely than others to perceive these tastes, which may drive them to consume more calories.

M. Yanina Pepino, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and Julie Mennella, PhD, a biopsychologist at the Monell Center in Philadelphia, where the research was conducted, studied four groups of women ages 21 to 41: obese smokers, obese nonsmokers, smokers of normal weight and nonsmokers of normal weight. The women tasted several vanilla puddings containing varying amounts of fat and were asked to rate them for sweetness and creaminess, a measure of fat content.

“Compared with the other three groups, smokers who were obese perceived less creaminess and sweetness,” Pepino said. “They also derived less pleasure from tasting the puddings.”

The findings are published in the April issue of the journal Obesity.

Pepino cautioned that the study only identified associations between smoking and taste rather than definitive reasons why obese smokers were less likely to detect fat and sweetness. But the findings imply that the ability to perceive fat and sweetness — and to derive pleasure from food — is compromised in female smokers who are obese, which could contribute to the consumption of more calories.

“Obese people often crave high-fat foods,” she said. “Our findings suggest that having this intense craving but not perceiving fat and sweetness in food may lead these women to eat more. Since smoking and obesity are risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, the additional burden of craving more fats and sugars, while not fully tasting them, could be detrimental to health.”

Interestingly, it was the combination of smoking and obesity that created something of a “double-whammy” because smokers who were not overweight could perceive fat and sweetness that was similar to women who did not smoke.

Previous studies have linked smoking to increased food cravings and greater consumption of fat, regardless of whether a smoker is obese. Studies also have found that smokers tend to have increased waist-to-hip ratios. That is, they tend to be shaped more like apples than pears, another risk factor for heart disease and metabolic problems.

The findings contribute to a growing body of knowledge that challenges the lingering perception that smoking helps a person maintain a healthy weight.

“Women are much more likely than men to take up smoking as an aid to weight control,” Pepino said. “But there is no good evidence showing that it helps maintain a healthy weight over the long term. And in the case of obese women who smoke, it appears the smoking may make things even worse than previously thought.”

(Source: news.wustl.edu)

According to a new study by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and the University of Amsterdam, oxytocin caused participants to lie more to benefit their groups, and to do so more quickly and without expectation of reciprocal dishonesty from their group. Oxytocin is a hormone the body naturally produces to stimulate bonding.

The research was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).

"Our results suggest people are willing to bend ethical rules to help the people close to us, like our team or family," says Dr. Shaul Shalvi of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s Department of Psychology and director of BGU’s Center for Decision Making and Economic Psychology. "This raises an interesting, although perhaps more philosophical, question: Are all lies immoral?"

Dr. Shalvi’s research focuses on ethical decision-making and the justifications people use to do wrong and still feel moral. Specifically, he looks at what determines how much people lie and which settings increase people’s honesty. Very little is known about the biological foundations of immoral behavior.

"Together, these findings fit a functional perspective on morality revealing dishonesty to be plastic and rooted in evolved neurobiological circuitries, and align with work showing that oxytocin shifts the decision-maker’s focus from self to group interests," Shalvi says.

"The results highlight the role of bonding and cooperation in shaping dishonesty, providing insight into when and why collaboration turns into corruption."

Oxytocin is a peptide of nine amino acids produced in the brain’s hypothalamus, functioning as both a hormone and neurotransmitter. Research has shown that in addition to its bonding effect in couples and between mothers and babies, it also stimulates one’s social approach.

Higher levels of oxytocin correlate with greater empathy, lower social anxiety and more pro-social choice in anonymous games; reduction in fear response; and greater trust in interpersonal exchange. It also stimulates defense-related aggression.

In the experiment designed by Shalvi and fellow researcher Carsten K. W. De Dreu of the University of Amsterdam’s Department of Psychology, 60 male participants received an intranasal dose of either oxytocin or placebo. They were then split into teams of three and asked to predict the results of 10 coin tosses.

Participants were asked to toss the coin, see the outcome and report whether their prediction was correct. They knew that for each correct prediction, they could lie and earn more money to split between their group members, who were engaging in the same task.

"The statistical probability of someone correctly guessing the results of nine or 10 coin tosses is about one percent," says Shalvi. "Yet, 53 percent of those who were given oxytocin claimed to have correctly predicted that many coin tosses, which is extremely unlikely."

Only 23 percent of the participants who received the placebo reported the same results, reflecting a high likelihood that they were also lying, but to a lesser extent compared to those receiving oxytocin.

(Source: eurekalert.org)

The first UK study of the use of ketamine intravenous infusions in people with treatment-resistant depression has been carried out in an NHS clinic by researchers at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Oxford.

'Ketamine is a promising new antidepressant which works in a different way to existing antidepressants. We wanted to see whether it would be safe if given repeatedly, and whether it would be practical in an NHS setting. We especially wanted to check that repeated infusions didn't cause cognitive problems,' explains principal investigator Dr Rupert McShane, a consultant psychiatrist at Oxford Health and a researcher in Oxford University's Department of Psychiatry.

The researchers confirmed that ketamine has a rapid antidepressant effect in some patients with severe depression who have not responded to other treatments. These are patients suffering from severe depression which may have lasted years despite multiple antidepressants and talking therapies. Although many patients relapsed within a day or two, 29% had benefit which lasted at least three weeks and 15% took over two months to relapse.

Ketamine did not cause cognitive or bladder side effects when given on up to six occasions, although some people did experience other side effects such as anxiety during the infusion or being sick. The team have now given over 400 infusions to 45 patients and are exploring ways to maintain the effect. They report their findings in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. The study was funded by National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research for Patient Benefit Programme.

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