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Effects of anxiety on caloric intake and satiety-related brain activation in women and men
To assess anxiety’s relationship with calorie intake and food cue perception, this 2016 study assessed 55 twins (26 complete, 3 incomplete pairs) on state and trait anxiety using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and allowed the subjects to eat freely at a buffet while monitoring food consumption. Before the buffet, the participants were provided with standardized meals, with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans being performed on each individual before and after these meals. The study also involved the twins viewing blocks of fattening and non-fattening food images, and non-food objects during these fMRI scans. The results showed positive associations, in women, between trait anxiety with body mass index (BMI) and with kilocalories consumed at the buffet (p=0.005) and percent kilocalories taken in from fat (p=0.006) when the model was adjusted for BMI. In within-pair models, which control for shared familial and genetic factors, this relationship trait anxiety had with the kilocalories from the buffet remained but not its link with BMI. Women with high trait anxiety were observed not to suppress activation by fattening food cues across brain regions associated with satiety perception after eating a standardized meal (based on the fMRI data). This study has evidence to believe that among women, trait anxiety can potentially predispose excess intake of calories through a change in perception of high-calorie environmental food cues, which could place these women with genetic predispositions toward weight gain at risk of obesity. [NPID: stress, anxiety, trait anxiety, buffet, twins, fMRI, food cues, satiety, obesity]
Year: 2016
