The research comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that many teens skip breakfast and adolescent obesity has quadrupled in the last 30 years.
Dr. Heather Leidy, an assistant professor of nutrition and exercise physiology who led the study, said:
"Our research showed that people experience a dramatic decline in cravings for sweet foods when they eat breakfast.
However, breakfasts that are high in protein also reduced cravings for savory - or high-fat - foods.
On the other hand, if breakfast is skipped, these cravings continue to rise throughout the day."
The study looked at how different breakfasts affected the levels of the critical neurotransmitter, dopamine (Hoertel et al., 2014).
Dopamine is involved in how we process rewards, including cravings for food.
When you eat, a burst of dopamine is initiated, which gives you the feelings of reward.
Dr. Leidy explained how this relates to obesity:
This is particularly important, Dr. Leidy, given the rising levels of obesity:"Dopamine levels are blunted in individuals who are overweight or obese, which means that it takes much more stimulation - or food - to elicit feelings of reward; we saw similar responses within breakfast-skippers.Eating breakfast, particularly a breakfast high in protein, seems to do that."
To counteract the tendencies to overeat and to prevent weight gain that occurs as a result of overeating, we tried to identify dietary behaviors that provide these feelings of reward while reducing cravings for high-fat foods.
"In the U.S., people are skipping breakfast more frequently, which is associated with food cravings, overeating and obesity.
"It used to be that nearly 100 percent of American adults, kids and teens were eating breakfast, but over the last 50 years, we have seen a decrease in eating frequency and an increase in obesity."
Comment: Many people skip breakfast or load up on high-carb foods. Skipping the first meal of the day causes you to eat more at lunch and primes your brain to seek out unhealthier, higher-calorie foods. Carbohydrates cause insulin levels to spike, then precipitously drop, which sets up a roller-coaster of food cravings. One of the best ways to improve health and metabolism is to switch to a ketogenic diet, which is rich in saturated fat, with moderate protein intake and minimal carbohydrates. This diet also helps to alleviate and prevent a host of diseases. See:
High-fat low-carb ketogenic diets beginning to earn mainstream respect
The Ketogenic Diet - An Overview
The art and science of nutritional ketosis Stephen Phinney