Eating junk food while being stressed is more likely to lead to weight gain, experts say

Do you tend to eat more when you are stressed?

If that is the case, we have bad news for you: you are more likely to gain weight than at any other time even if you are eating the same types of foods.

A team led by Professor Herbert Herzog, head of the Laboratory of Food Disorders at the Garvan Medical Research Institute, discovered that when we are stressed, eating more at ease can lead to even greater weight gain.

"This study indicates that we need to be much more aware of what we eat when we are stressed, in order to avoid a faster development of obesity," says Professor Herzog.

Although some people eat less when they are stressed, most of us tend to eat more and it is often the higher calorie foods that we put aside.

Food intake is controlled by our brain

To study the effects of "stress consumption", scientists examined different areas of the brain in mice.

Although food intake is primarily controlled by a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, another part of the brain – the amygdala – processes emotional responses, including anxiety.

Their study found that when mice were stressed for a long time and that high-calorie foods were available, they became obese faster than when they ate the same food in a stress-free environment.

We produce an anti-stress chemical

At the center of weight gain was a molecule called NPY, which the brain makes in response to stress to stimulate nutrition.

"We discovered that when we stopped producing NPY, the tonsil weight gain was reduced," explained lead author Dr. Kenny Chi Kin Ip.

"Without NPY, the weight gain of a high-fat diet with stress was the same as that taken in a stress-free environment.This shows a clear link between stress, obesity and NPY."

The production of insulin can be affected

Normally, our body produces insulin just after a meal to help the cells absorb glucose and send a "stop eating" signal to the brain when we are full.

Chronic stress alone slightly increases insulin levels, but when we are stressed and we eat heat, these levels of insulin soar.

Over a long period, our nerve cells become insensitive to insulin, preventing them from detecting everything.

This then causes the nerve cells to increase their levels of NYP, which makes us eat more and prevents us from burning energy through heat.

In other words, it becomes a vicious circle that ultimately leads to obesity.

"Our results revealed a vicious circle, characterized by high and chronic insulin levels caused by stress and a high-calorie diet that is increasingly favoring food," said Professor Herzog.

"This really reinforces the idea that if it's bad to eat junk food, eating high calorie foods under stress is a double whammy that promotes obesity."

He said that if the insulin imbalance is at the center of a number of diseases (such as diabetes), further research is needed to examine its impact on the brain and the body.

This story originally appeared on The Sun. Read more of The Sun's content here.