Can You Think Yourself Full? How Our Thoughts Affect Hunger

The day after I published my post about wheat and gluten, the corner of the blogosphere where the health geeks hang out was all a-flutter. A new study came out casting aspersions on the concept of non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

Celiac disease is well-known and accepted within the medical community, but the notion that people not diagnosed with celiac would have reactions to gluten met with some skepticism. Yet many people have eliminated gluten-containing foods from their diets and report feeling better.

This new study was conducted by the same scientist who first posited gluten as the culprit in irritable bowel syndrome. He was unsatisfied with his original study, and so conducted another more rigorous one in which self-described gluten-intolerant participants were unwittingly fed high-, low-, or no-gluten diets. The researchers found complaints of GI distress were wholly unrelated to the intake of gluten. The study suggests a 'nocebo' effect is at work. People think eliminating gluten will make them feel better, and so it does.

I read several quite snarky articles telling non-celiac gluten avoiders that it's all in their heads and stop being such a whiner and eat some toast. (I'm paraphrasing here.)

However, a friend and reader sent me this article, which explains this study more thoroughly. If you believe you are gluten-sensitive, or are tempted to surreptitiously feed toast to someone who is, please read the article. Unsurprisingly, the gluten study is more nuanced than the reported sound bytes.

All In Their Heads?
The whole thing got me thinking about the mind and how it affects our health... and then I came upon this little gem reported by National Public Radio.

An experiment was conducted by Alia Crum, a clinical psychologist at Columbia University Business School. I'll admit I'm kind of amused that Columbia Business School has a clinical psychologist on staff. Is this common? Or is everyone still broken up about Lehman Brothers?

Anyway, Crum has always been interested in the placebo effect. This, of course, is the phenomenon of a physically ineffective 'remedy' becoming effective only because the patient believes it to be so. Crum had a  hunch that how we think about our food might actually affect how we metabolize it. She tested the theory with milkshakes.

Milkshakes!

Crum made up a batch of milkshakes and poured them into two different cups--one labeled 'indulgence' and '620 calories.' The other was labeled 'Sensishake, zero fat, zero added sugar, 140 calories.' In truth, each shake came in at the same 300 calories.

Half her test subjects had the 'diet' shake, the other half had the 'indulgent' one. Then each participant had blood drawn. Those who drank the one labeled 'indulgence' actually had lower levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin. Their belief that the shake was more fattening actually sated them more than the diet shake had its consumers. In fact, they all consumed the same thing, but they believed they were consuming something different, and their hormone levels followed suit.

Here's a video from NPR explaining ghrelin and the study in greater (and amusing) detail:
Of course, this is just one study, and part of me wonders if the indulgent shake drinkers subconsciously were thinking 'oh crap, I just drank 600 calories' and if that had any effect on their ghrelin levels... more research is needed, but it's an interesting starting point, at least.

What does this mean?
Can we think ourselves thin and healthy? Can we convince ourselves that Doritos are nutritious and will that make it so? Well, no. Obviously, our thoughts do not alter the nutritional content of foods, but it does suggest that enjoying our food, thinking of it as satisfying and nourishing and yes--even indulgent--stimulates a physical response.

I'm betting this is part of why eating at the table with our peeps, rather than at our desks or in front of the TV,  is so important. Food, however simple, is much more satisfying when consumed in a relaxing, undistracted, convivial environment. Of course, eating with my children does not often meet these criteria, but I do it anyway, in faith that someday, it will.

This is giving me a lot of food for thought (pun intended.) The Darling Husband just emerged to forage for a post-dinner nummy-num. I directed him to some home-made granola (made with coconut flakes, nuts and fat... but no sugar.) He ate a bit and said, "Boy, if that wasn't like kissing your sister." (Apparently this is an expression, meaning something that should be pleasurable was devoid of pleasure. Should the Darling Sister-in-law be reading this, your brother would like you to know that is not intended as a slight against you--it's an expression, and he's sure you feel the same way.)

Anyway, for all the talk of health and inflammation and nutrient density, this is a good reminder that God meant for our food to be YUMMY. Life-giving, sustaining and YUMMY.

Needless to say, I'll be adding a little sweet to the next batch of granola.

True Confessions

I love peanut butter. I think I've told you this before. Love, love, love it. I could eat peanut butter all day long, and sometimes... I do. I don't like natural peanut butter, though. By that I mean the kind you can grind yourself at Whole Paycheck. It's all a throwback to my childhood when my mother went on a health kick and banished Skippy from our house.

Happily, now Skippy makes 'natural' peanut butter. It's the same consistency as regular peanut butter, but without the partially hydrogenated oils, which will apparently cause us to sprout horns and a tail. Don't burst my bubble and tell me Skippy Natural is made from glow-in-the-dark peanuts harvested by exploited wood elves. I don't want to hear it.

Anyway, I love peanut butter so much, I've decided I need to banish it from my kitchen. Not that peanut butter is nutritionally bankrupt. I sincerely believe that it isn't. However, it is fairly calorically dense and I am not able to control myself around it. Peanut butter is a wanton vixen and I am it's slave. (I told you I could be dramatic.)

I cannot completely banish peanut butter from my home. There would be a mutiny. My spawn have inherited my love of peanut butter and consume it regularly. So, I'm simply sending peanut butter to my cold, dark basement. Where the chocolate chips live. Because I can't control myself with them, either.

There they are... Bonnie and Clyde on lockdown

I wish I were the sort of person who could consume chocolate and peanut butter in moderation, but I'm not. I've come to accept this. If something causes me to stumble, I'm going to cut it out. Better have to trudge up and down the frigid polar vortex stairs to retrieve the peanut butter for the small people than to inhale the whole jar in one sitting while watching reality TV. That's in the Bible. I'm sure of it... though I might have paraphrased a little.

I got the idea of keeping the chocolate chips and peanut butter in the basement (aka--'the second fridge') from this book:

Mindless Eating was published back in 2006, which means you can almost certainly find a copy of it at your local library. At least until another reader of A Mom Walks Into A Barre beats you to it. (Did you know there is now a hold on Sitting Kills, Moving Heals by Dr. Joan Vernikos in my local library system? The one I discussed in my last post? Yes, people. I'm influential. I feel like Oprah.)

Anyway, Mindless Eating was written by Brian Wansink, director at Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab. Dr. Wansink has made it his life's work to figure out why people eat what (and how much) they do, and he does it with a delightfully nerdy sense of humor. It's important to have a sense of humor if you live in Ithaca, NY. Talk about a polar vortex.

Dr. Wansink and his colleagues have conducted a number of experiments on unsuspecting diners. For example, they lured people in for a Superbowl party offering free chicken wings, then tested how many wings people ate under various conditions. FYI--don't gripe if a server doesn't clear your plate next time you're at happy hour. Turns out you'll eat way fewer wings if you can see the leftover bones than you would if your table were cleared regularly.

One of the chapters in the book is entitled the 'See-food Trap.' Wansink and his henchmen gave a group of office workers candy dishes stocked with Hershey Kisses. Half of the group were given clear dishes, while the other half's dishes were frosted glass. Each evening, Wansink's students counted the number of Kisses eaten (that would have been 'all of them' in my dish) and refilled the dish. They continued this for two weeks.

At the end, the workers with the clear dishes consumed a whopping 71% more candy than those who had been given opaque jars. That's a lot, people. Wansink and his students also rotated the location of the dishes--some were planted right beside the computer, some in the desk drawer, some on a cabinet a few feet away. In each case, the more convenient the dish, the more chocolate the worker ate.



In short, the more accessible food is, the more likely we are to eat it. If we have to expend a degree of effort, we're more likely to pass on it. And this is why peanut butter and chocolate chips now live in the basement. It's cold down there. When I'm feeling weak, I'm much less likely to descend the staircase into the frozen tundra that is my basement in January.

The book is replete with interesting stories of sabotage and deception (all in the name of science) and some pretty handy tips on how to trick yourself into eating more of the foods that are good for you and less of those that aren't.

It all kind of makes me want to get a job in Wansink's lab. But then I'd have to live in Ithaca. Mmmm... not convenient. I'll pass.