Snacking Off Meal Times? It's in Your Genes

Filed in archive Studies on August 11, 2006

In a new study in mice from the University of Texas, suggests that eating snacks outside of set meal times may be due to irregular switching on of genes in the brain that 'expect' food at irregular hours.

The UT researchers, led by Dr. Masashi Yanagisawa, trained mice to eat at a time when they normally wouldn't, and found that food turns on body-clock genes in a particular area of the brain.

Even when the food stopped coming, the genes continued to activate at the expected mealtime.

The daily ups-and-downs of waking, eating and other bodily processes are known as circadian rhythms, which are regulated by many internal and external forces. One class of genes involved in these cycles is known as Period or Per genes.

This finding may go some way to explain dysfunctional eating patterns that play a role in human obesity and may also be relevant in understanding "craving" in humans that has previously been linked to pleasure derived from the taste-aroma combination of foods in relation to both over-eating and obesity.

"This might be an entrance to the whole mysterious arena of how metabolic conditions in an animal can synchronize themselves with a body clock," said Yanagisawa.

Read more at Food Navigator.