Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Tufts University’s Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging found in a preliminary study that the brain is capable of being trained to prefer healthy food to unhealthy food. The study involved 13 overweight and obese men and women, eight of whom enrolled in a weight loss program called the iDiet while the remaining five were the “control group” who were not interfered with for six months.
Participants had MRI brain scans taken at the start and the end of the six-month study. End results showed that there was an increased sensitivity to low-calorie food in the brain, specifically in the area of the brain associated with addiction and learning. The results indicated that the participants had an increased level of enjoyment by the idea of healthy food, and a decreased interest in junk food.
“We don’t start out in life loving French fries and hating, for example, whole wheat pasta,” says senior and co-corresponding author Susan B. Roberts, Ph.D. “This conditioning happens over time in response to eating repeatedly what is out there in the toxic food environment.”
