Discrimination exposure impacts unhealthy processing of food cues: Crosstalk between the brain and gut

Discriminating experiences are linked to poor health consequences, including obesity. The exact processes by which prejudice causes obesity are yet unknown. Zhang et al. (2023) examined the effects of discriminating exposures on the brain’s responsiveness to food pictures and related dysregulations in the brain-gut-microbiome pathway using multi-omics studies of neuroimaging and fecal metabolites. The authors demonstrate that discrimination is related to altered glutamate-pathway metabolites implicated in preference for unhealthy meals, oxidative stress, and inflammation, and enhanced food-cue responsiveness in frontal-striatal areas involved in reward, motivation, and executive control. After controlling for age, diet, body mass index, race, and socioeconomic position, associations between discrimination-related brain and gut markers were found to be biased toward harmful sugary foods. The authors conclude that discrimination may increase the sensitivity to food cues and affect the brain, stomach, and microbiome, encouraging unhealthy eating habits and raising the risk of obesity. Individuals who endure stress connected to prejudice may benefit from therapies that normalize these abnormalities. [NPID: Discrimination, diet, microbiome alteration, food perception]

Year: 2023

Reference: Zhang, X., Wang, H., Kilpatrick, L.A. et al. Discrimination exposure impacts unhealthy processing of food cues: crosstalk between the brain and gut. Nat. Mental Health (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-023-00134-9