Eating Fat When Sad Really Does Lift Mood

Feel the elevated mood?

There may be more to the term comfort eating than we realize - however, consuming fat appears to be the mood-lifter, rather than any other food ingredient. Researchers from University of Leuven, Belgium, reported on a study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The authors explained that humans have an intimate relationship between their emotional state and what they eat. When we feel tired, stressed, anxious or overworked we tend to grab the chocolate bar, rather than an apple - in other words, comfort foods.

Lukas Van Oudenhove, MD., PhD. and team charted areas of the brain with functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans - specific areas of the brain are seen to light up when a person is sad. They recruited 12 healthy individuals, none of them was obese. They were then given an infusion of fatty acid or saline via a feeding tube.

Fatty acid was used because most comfort foods have a high fatty acid content.

The healthy individuals listened to music, which was either sad or neutral. They also looked at images of the same nature (sad or neutral). They provided feedback on their state of hunger, fullness, and mood before the imaging scan, and also three times during it.

When the infusion was administered, the participants did not know whether they were receiving saline or fatty acid.

The researchers found that the levels of sadness among the fatty acid receivers was approximately 50% lower compared to the saline receivers.

Funny how the results of eating more fat does not seem to make people unhappy about being too fat any happier.