Those who are trying to avoid excessive craving for fast food, cakes and chocolates can try this new fibre milkshake made by British scientists. It is made of a powder containing the fibre inulin-propionate ester that has been based on a molecule produced by gut bacteria, which "switches off that part of the brain responsible for high-calorie cravings."
It not only brings down cravings but also enables people to eat 10 percent less than normal, according to experts at Imperial College London and the University of Glasgow.
"Our previous findings showed that people who ate this ingredient gained less weight - but we did not know why. This study is filling in a missing bit of the jigsaw - and shows that this supplement can decrease activity in brain areas associated with food reward at the same time as reducing the amount of food they eat," senior author of the study from the Department of Medicine at Imperial, professor Gary Frost, said in a statement.
About 20 volunteers were given a milkshake made with the powder of the inulin. In the gut, the bacteria releases a compound called propionate, which may make the brain lose appetite. Still, it was found that compared to just inulin, the inulin-propionate ester supplement can release more propionate in the intestines.
After drinking the milkshake, participants of the study subjected themselves to MRI scans. They were then shown images of low and high-calorie foods. Volunteers who drank the milkshake with inulin-propionate ester tended to show less activity in the brain that released reward-related activity when compared to others who just looked at high-calorie foods.
Nucleus accumbens centres in the brain and caudate are the parts of the brain that are linked to motivation and tend to crave for food.
Prof Gary Frost said that eating enough fibre to produce similar amounts of propionate would be difficult: "The amount of inulin-propionate ester used in this study was 10g - while previous studies show increased propionate production by 2.5 times. To get the same increase from fibre alone, we would need to eat around 60g a day. At the moment, the UK average is 15g."
