A recent study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) showed that brain activity may be a key to weight loss in obese adults.
The study, published Nov. 4 in the online journal Obesity, found that non-invasive brain stimulation led to decreased calorie consumption. The findings were also presented at the recent Obesity Society
meeting.
The study was led by scientists from the Phoenix Epidemiology and Clinical Research Branch, which is part of NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Nine obese men and women were used as test subjects; they were studied for eight days.
The subjects consumed weight-maintaining diets for five days, followed by three days in which they received active or sham transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).
During this time, the subjects were able to eat or drink whatever they wanted, getting the items from computerized vending machines.
The five subjects that received the inactive stimulation ate, on average, 700 fewer calories than those that recived the sham tDCS.
