Eating Breakfast Helps Regulate Food Intake Through Reward Brain Chemical

Whether or not eating breakfast will slow your metabolism or stop a dieter from shedding extra pounds may always be up for debate. However, recent findings published in Nutrition Journal show that eating this morning meal can increase a brain chemical related to regulating food intake and cravings.

Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia found that teens, in particular, who skipped breakfast, were more likely to gain weight throughout the day.

"Our research showed that people experience a dramatic decline in cravings for sweet foods when they eat breakfast," said Heather Leidy, an assistant professor of nutrition and exercise physiology, in a news release. "However, breakfasts that are high in protein also reduced cravings for savory - or high-fat - foods. On the other hand, if breakfast is skipped, these cravings continue to rise throughout the day."

For the study, researchers examined different breakfasts on participants' level of dopamine--a chemical involved in moderating impulses and food craving rewards in the brain. This was determined by measuring homovanillic acid (HVA)--otherwise known as the main dopamine metabolite.

When eating initiates the release of dopamine, which stimulates feelings of food reward, a reward response that's important to eating better helps to properly regulate food intake, and was conducted on young women with an average age of 19. 

"Dopamine levels are blunted in individuals who are overweight or obese, which means that it takes much more stimulation - or food - to elicit feelings of reward; we saw similar responses within breakfast-skippers," Leidy said. "To counteract the tendencies to overeat and to prevent weight gain that occurs as a result of overeating, we tried to identify dietary behaviors that provide these feelings of reward while reducing cravings for high-fat foods. Eating breakfast, particularly a breakfast high in protein, seems to do that."

"In the U.S., people are skipping breakfast more frequently, which is associated with food cravings, overeating and obesity," Leidy concluded. "It used to be that nearly 100 percent of American adults, kids and teens were eating breakfast, but over the last 50 years, we have seen a decrease in eating frequency and an increase in obesity."