Physiology & behavior
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Physiology & behavior · Feb 2006
Clinical TrialRestrained eaters show altered brain response to food odor.
Do restrained and unrestrained eaters differ in their brain response to food odor? We addressed this question by examining restrained eaters' brain response to food (chocolate) and non-food (geraniol, floral) odors, both when odor was attended to and when ignored. Using olfactory event-related potentials (OERPs), we found that restrained eaters and controls responded similarly to the non-food odor; however, unlike controls, restrained eaters showed no increase in brain response to the food odor when they focused attention on it. Rather, restrained eaters showed attenuated OERP amplitudes to the food odor in both attended and ignored conditions, suggesting that the brain's response to attended food odor was abnormally suppressed.
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Physiology & behavior · Feb 2006
Clinical TrialBitter taste markers explain variability in vegetable sweetness, bitterness, and intake.
Intake of vegetables falls short of recommendations to lower risk of chronic diseases. Most research addresses bitterness as a sensory deterrent to consuming vegetables. We examined bitter and sweet sensations from vegetables as mediators of vegetable preference and intake as well as how these tastes vary with markers of genetic variation in taste (3.2 mM 6-n-propylthiouracil bitterness) and taste pathology (1.0 mM quinine bitterness, chorda tympani nerve relative to whole mouth). ⋯ The spatial pattern of quinine bitterness, suggestive of insult to chorda tympani taste fibers, was associated with less bitterness and sweetness from vegetables. Via structural equation modeling, PROP best explained variability in vegetable preference and intake via vegetable bitterness whereas the quinine marker explained variability in vegetable preference and intake via vegetable bitterness and sweetness. In summary, bitterness and sweetness of sampled vegetables varied by taste genetic and taste function markers, which explained differences in preference for vegetables tasted in the laboratory as well as overall vegetable intake outside the laboratory.
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Physiology & behavior · Feb 2006
Clinical TrialUnderstanding variety: tasting different foods delays satiation.
Variety stimulates intake by as much as 40% following both simultaneous and sequential presentations. Varying sensory and other characteristics of foods could sustain interest in eating and delay the development of satiation. Two experiments set out to explore this by investigating the effect of introducing different foods to taste and rate during intake of a snack. ⋯ FD (94 +/- 9.3 g) participants ate significantly more than FF (68 +/- 9.5 g) and in support of findings from Experiment 1 pleasantness ratings during eating declined more rapidly during FF than FD. Variety may stimulate food intake, in part, by delaying the development of satiation which extends eating and therefore amount consumed. Encouraging consumers to focus on eating should facilitate the normal decline in pleasantness of the food and serve to limit intake.