Study: "Nutritional Wisdom" Fails When Unhealthy Foods Are More Available

Rodent studies suggest that "nutritional wisdom" has no effect when unhealthy food choices are more available than healthier nutrients, according to researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.

Studies have proven that there is a natural disposition to select a balanced diet with all necessary nutrients and suitable for the respective environment. However, humans are not keeping this balance because unhealthy food choices have become more available than healthier nutrients, according to the study published in the American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

Tests with rats showed that the number of containers of each nutrient provided markedly influenced consumption rates. Rats given a choice from separate sources of protein, carbohydrate, and fat thrived if given one cup of each. Fifty percent failed to thrive if given one cup of each and three extra cups of carbohydrate or fat. Rats given five bottles of sucrose solution and one bottle of water became fatter than rats given five bottles of water and one of sucrose.

Results of the study show that the more sources of a nutrient available to a rat, the more it chooses to eat. The effect of nutrient availability is so powerful that it overrides the healthy physiological controls of food intake.

These rat studies may model what happens in humans when the availability of the wrong food can override physiological controls of ingestion. Availability of food, and not the physiological actions of the body, may be the cause of obesity, concluded the researchers.

Other sources: American Physiological Society