Clara Barth 9/23/09
Chemistry Current Events Article
Everyone knows that if you eat too much ice cream, you’ll get fat. But what you probably don’t know is that when you eat something good and fatty, that you really like the taste of, the fats in the food actually send messages to your brain saying that you aren’t full yet, so you keep eating. At least that’s what a recent study from UT Southwestern Medical Center suggests. "Normally, our body is primed to say when we've had enough, but that doesn't always happen when we're eating something good," said Dr. Deborah Clegg. Your brain will get “hit” by the fatty acids in the food, and become resistant to insulin and leptin. Insulin and leptin are what normally tell your brain when you’ve had enough to eat. But because of the absence of these “senses” in your brain, you will probably overeat when eating fatty foods. In tests done on lab animals, they found that palmitic acid – a fatty acid found in foods such as cheese, milk, beef, and butter – especially triggered the illusion in your brain of not being full. The study claims that most saturated fats will have this affect on you. One of the main problems is, though, that the affects happen in your brain much faster than they will in visible parts of your body. In other words, you will see signs of obesity long after the mechanism is triggered in the brain. “The next step, Dr. Clegg said, is to determine how long it takes to reverse completely the effects of short-term exposure to high-fat food.”
This article, entitled “Ice Cream May Target The Brain Before Your Hips”, obviously discusses the problem of obesity. It says that obesity is really a problem in your brain, stating that when you eat high-fat foods, you are actually more likely to overeat than you would be if you eat less-fatty foods. Anyone who has a sweet tooth might have this problem, and probably even notice it. Obesity is a big problem in this country, and we didn’t even know it was a problem that all probably resulted in a misreading by your brain. The big problem with the food in this country is that we love to pack it with fat. If you put lots of fat into foods, then people want them more and more, without realizing that they’re full when they’re eating them. Perhaps all the fast-food chains and junk food companies knew this already, and it’s all just part of their marketing scheme to get you to eat more of their foods. But regardless of weather or not they knew about it, we all know about it now. We now have the advantage of waiting and thinking of weather or not we’re actually full, if we really want that last Oreo or not.
Personally, I didn’t like the article very much. I thought that the content and the subject matter were very interesting, but the actual article wasn’t written very well. Some of the information they put it was confusing to the average person, as they used terminology that I didn’t understand, and they didn’t explain. I didn’t feel that the article ended very well because I thought, after I finished it, that there was more to read and that I had missed something. But the topic the article covered was very interesting.
-Clara Barth
3) Clara definetly explained the article in a simple context in which everyone can understand. It also very mind opening in a way that it explained everyones craivings for food that is high in fat. She also picked a very interesting article that has captured peoples attention.
ReplyDelete2) Clara could've tried explaining why your brain has cravings for these kinds of foods (if the article explained that. She could have also explained a way to prevent this.
1) I think that this is significant because to many high fat foods is one of the leading causes of obesity in America.
Such a fantastic explanation Clara!! You most definetly made it clear in the article that obesity is a huge problem. You also explained how fat food makes people crave it more. Finally, the way you articulated on your explanation of what fatty foods do to the brain was very good aswell.
ReplyDeleteIf I may make a suggestion, you could have talked more about what other parts of the body high fat foods effect. You might have also wanted to tell some more about how the fat foods interact with the brain.
This article was very important in the way that a normal American should be aware and know all of the information that Clara said about this article because according to the statistics of obesity in America, this article would be something to think about.
Louis Florio
ReplyDeleteBlog Comment on “Ice Cream May Target The Brain Before Your Hips” ( Clara Barth )
In this article, “ Ice Cream May Target The Brain Before Your Hips” , I was educated on a very important topic in America today that makes many peoples lives miserable, obesity. I was impressed how this article went very into the types of fatty acids and Insulin and Leptin, what normally tell your brain to stop eating. I was really amazed on how foods I eat everyday, like cheese, beef, and milk all have the properties capable to make you think your not full causing you to eat more. This review could have been better if it was not so repetitive, it also focused to much on obesity and towards the end of the article. Though I did think that the explanation on the process of how the fatty foods make you hungry was well presented. Another aspect that was well presented was the personal feedback of the article, which pointed out the how the article would appeal to the average person. Over all I thought this was well presented with a couple of flaws.