South Beach Diet

Britishscientists said eating fat lights up pleasure centers of the brain, which mighthelp explain why people cannot get enough of certain foods.

The researchers, at the University of Oxford, placed 12 hungry people inside afunctional magnetic resonance imaging machine and fed them differently texturedfoods through a tube, the online version of the British journal Nature reported.They watched subjects’ reactions as they consumed mixtures of tastelesscellulose tailored to the consistencies of water, corn oil or runny syrup, aswell as a mouthful of vegetable oil.

The thicker solutions triggered a brain area that partly overlaps with one knownto be activated by taste, the researchers said, which suggests the brain buildsa picture of what is in the mouth based on both taste and texture.

Fatty mixtures fired up an extra brain region called the cingulate cortex, whichis tickled by other pleasurable experiences such as a caress, a perfumed scentor winning money.

The discovery reinforces the idea that a dab of butter or dollop of cream makesdinner all the more appealing.

It is still not clear, however, they said, how the mouth manages to detect thesetextural differences.