A new study by Dr Nick Gant's team from the Centre for Brain Research at the University of Auckland provides yet more evidence that the brain knows far more about the foods we ingest that previously thought.Good News: It's not your imagination.
"Liquid solutions used in our study were sweetened artificially but when carbohydrate was present, we saw increased activation in the brain that we don't see when only sweetness is present," he says. "This helps explain the 'kick' people complain is absent in diet beverages or products.
"We may be able to use the experimental platform in this study to help develop functional foods and artificial sweeteners that are as hedonistically rewarding as the real thing."
Bad News: This receptor is probably the switch that turns on insulin production. If you stimulate it using other molecules you will produce fat just like sugar.
