If you've been looking for motivation to get off the couch and start moving some muscle (and no, not just those of your fingers clicking on your phone or keyboard), a new study proves that running not only helps weight loss by burning calories, it also affects how the brain responds to food and curbs appetite.
The study was recently conducted at four universities in the UK and one university in Japan, and its findings were published in the scientific journal Human Brain Mapping. It suggests that running helps curb appetite while intensifying the response of certain brain regions to food-related stimuli.
Running curbs appetite, Photo: Gettyimages
The researchers sampled a group of 23 men. This is in order to examine the effect of running on blood flow in the brain and how it affects appetite. To test the research question, the researchers performed an MRI scan on the subjects before they ran and another MRI scan after 60 minutes of rest at the end of the run.
During the scans, each participant viewed three types of images: foods considered healthy, such as vegetables and fruits; High-calorie and energy-rich foods, like, chocolate; and objects that do not belong to the food category, for example, furniture.
If you were looking for motivation to get up off the couch, Photo: Gettyimages
The study found that running suppressed runners' feelings of hunger. On the one hand, the subjects reported a reduced sense of hunger, and on the other hand, the study found that running increased food reactivity in certain areas of the subjects' brains. These are areas of the brain that influence physiological and psychological responses to the sight or smell of food, which can have an impact on appetite and the amount of food consumed by the person.
"The findings from the study confirm that people feel less hungry during and after exercise," said Dr. Alice Thackeray, one of the senior researchers involved in the study. She added: "Although there is still a need to deepen the information on the subject in order to understand the implications of the findings, we can already say that the brain plays an important role in controlling the level of appetite and the amount of food we consume."
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