AI Article Synopsis
- Aversive conditioning can diminish the pleasure associated with comfort meals, and this study aimed to see if cognitive interventions could restore that pleasure.
- The research involved 12 healthy women, measuring their responses to a comfort meal before, after conditioning (which made the meal less enjoyable), and after a cognitive intervention that provided an explanation of the conditioning.
- Results showed that the cognitive intervention significantly improved participants' enjoyment and digestive well-being after eating the meal, while the control group saw no such improvements, indicating that the negative effects of aversive conditioning can be reversed.
Article Abstract
Background: Aversive conditioning weakens the gratifying value of a comfort meal. The aim was to determine the effect of a cognitive intervention to reverse aversive conditioning and restore hedonic postprandial response.
Methods: This was a randomized, sham-controlled, single-blind, parallel study that was conducted on 12 healthy women ( = 6 in each group). The reward value of a comfort meal was measured on different days: at initial exposure, after aversive conditioning (administration of the same meal with a masked fat overload on the previous day) and after a cognitive intervention (disclosing the aversive conditioning paradigm in the test group vs. no explanation in the control group). The primary outcome, digestive wellbeing, was determined using graded scales at regular intervals before and after ingestion.
Results: At initial exposure, the comfort meal produced a rewarding experience that was impaired using aversive conditioning; upon re-exposure to the original meal, the cognitive intervention increased meal wanting and liking; improved digestive wellbeing and mood; tended to reduce postprandial satiety, bloating/fullness; and abolished discomfort/pain, thereby restoring the hedonic value of the comfort meal. By contrast, sham intervention had no effects, and the postprandial sensations remained like the responses to the offending meal.
Conclusion: In this proof-of-concept study, we demonstrate that in healthy women, a mild, short-term acquired aversion to a comfort meal can be reversed using a cognitive intervention.
Clinicaltrials: gov ID: NCT05897411.
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| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10708304 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu15234962 | DOI Listing |
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