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According to researchers at an American university, dessert at the end of a meal helps maintain the feeling of fullness through the day. In this way one avoids resorting to the frequent snacks that contribute to weight gain
If at the end of a meal we are fighting the temptation of a cake we love, and don't dare ask for a slice so as not to overdo the calories, let's not worry too much: let's give in to temptation – our figure will be the better for it. It may be hard to believe, but so says research carried out by Georgia State University in Atlanta and recently published in the journal “Hippocampus”.
This, of course, does not mean that sweets do not contribute in good measure to the calorie count; there is nothing revolutionary on that front. However, according to the American scholars, cakes, pastries and ice creams can help us maintain a sound eating habit. This would happen because foods containing sugar lead the brain to form the memory of a complete meal to which nothing more need be added, and therefore make the feeling of fullness last longer.
These foods, the research reveals, activate the dorsal hippocampus, that is, the part of the brain fundamental to the formation of “episodic memory”, which records events confined to a given moment and a given setting. And it is precisely “episodic memory” that regulates part of our behaviour over the course of the day, reminding us that we have already performed a certain action and do not need to repeat it.
So what would eating a dessert at the end of a meal be good for? For avoiding snacks during the day without forcing ourselves into difficult, and sometimes impossible, efforts of will. The brain takes care of it: by holding the memory of the meal already eaten for longer, it does not trigger the sense of hunger. “We believe that episodic memory can be used to control eating behaviour”, said Dr Marise Parent, one of the authors of the study. “The scientific literature is rich in research showing that as snacking increases, so does the risk of obesity.”
According to the American scholars' theory, then, to keep one's weight under control it is essential to act on the mechanism by which the brain controls the frequency of meals. To reach these conclusions, in the course of the research they verified that a meal consisting of a sweetened solution, sucrose or saccharin, increased “the expression of synaptic plasticity in the neurons” of the dorsal hippocampus in mice. And this duly translated into a subsequent, less frequent request for food compared with that of animals which had been fed normally.
Although still at an early stage, it is reasonable to think that this study may arouse the interest of all those with a sweet tooth who, until today, wondered how it might be possible to lose weight while eating desserts.