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This week on Health Watch, we’re talking about how your brain affects your body. We’ve been discussing research about the relationship of hunger hormones to mood. Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that the hormones that make you hungry when your body needs food also play a role in keeping you from being anxious and depressed.
Dr. Jeffrey Zigman, a UT Southwestern internist and psychiatrist, says this could have been an evolutionary advantage because those who could be calm when they were hungry would be better at finding food. It’s possible that this hunger hormone effect could play a role in anorexia nervosa. Hunger hormones rise when someone is hungry, which then has an antidepressant and anti-anxiety effect, so severely restricting calories may make anorexia nervosa sufferers feel good. Doctors plan more research into how hunger hormones affect the brain.
Visit http://www.utsouthwestern.org/mentalhealth to learn more about
UT Southwestern’s clinical services in mental health.
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July 2008
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