Junk food cravings? That burning desire for chocolate may be genetic

[A]ccording to some new research on how your genes affect the foods you seek out, it’s not your fault [if you have trouble sticking to a healthy eating plan]. You’re not weak-willed, you’re just genetically predisposed to prefer certain foods.

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In a presentation at the Experimental Biology Conference in Chicago, Silvia Berciano, a predoctoral researcher in genomics and nutrition at Tufts University, shows how our genes can predispose us to preferring certain types of foods, foods that aren’t always the best for us.

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What [Berciano] found were some interesting correlations between eating habits and what are known as single nucleotide polymorphisms — the most common types of genetic variations among people.

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Notably, the researchers also found that people whose genes showed a lower number of oxytocin receptors in the brain — oxytocin is the hormone associated with human bonding — eat more chocolate and have significantly higher body mass indices, which in turn has its own set of negative health outcomes.

 

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Do Our Genes Make Us Like Eating Crap We Know Is Bad for Us?

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