According to a new study, people who skip breakfast can achieve the opposite result - they will start to eat more during the day, choosing less healthy foods. While breakfast helps people avoid overeating and eliminates cravings for high-calorie foods.
Researchers compared magnetic resonance imaging of the brain of 21 people. Scanning was carried out twice: on the day when the participants did not have breakfast, and the second time after breakfast, whose calorie content was 750 calories. In both cases, after passing the scan, the participants were invited to dine.
"After examining the results of MRI and observing how much the study participants ate for lunch, we found enough evidence that abstinence from food in the morning increases the attractiveness of high-calorie foods in the eyes of these people after some time and, therefore, the amount of food they eat. "said Dr. Tony Goldstone of Imperial College Clinical Research Center in London.
The study showed that people who skipped breakfast had changes in the structure of the orbitofrontal cortex, the area of the brain that is associated with the reward and taste of food.
In particular, photographs of high-calorie foods caused activity in this area of the brain. The authors of the study note, however, that among those participants who had breakfast that day, this reaction was not so strong.
Researchers have concluded that fasting is not a good nutritional strategy because it causes the brain to demand high-calorie foods as compensation.
