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Researchers from the departments of Food Science and Human Nutrition, and Biomedical Sciences of Iowa State University (USA), found that chewing food longer reduced appetite after eating, but did not lower food intake at the next meal. This was coupled with an increased blood glucose response and higher plasma concentrations of cholecystokinin (CCK) and lower levels of ghrelin, which indicate increased satiety. When the satiety of food is higher, it makes our appetite for eating again stay away for longer.
After an overnight fasting period, twenty-one healthy males with normal body weights were asked to consume a pizza (183 grams, 490 kilocalories), which was cut into 24 equal-sized portions (3.8 x 2.5 cm). The participants were instructed to chew each portion either 15 or 40 times before swallowing. The subjective appetite – before and at several time points after the meal – was evaluated through a questionnaire with four questions: How hungry do you feel right now? How full do you feel right now? How preoccupied with food are you right now? What is your desire to eat right now? To measure satiety related hormones, glucose, and other markers, blood samples were taken at several points in time. To study the effect on satiety, a pasta meal was provided three hours after the pizza meal. This time, no instructions for chewing were given and the participants were informed that they could eat as much food as they wanted.
The mechanism behind the higher secretion of satiety-related hormones, which appears to be induced by more chewing is unclear. The authors hypothesise there could be a neural response in the brain regions responsible for hormonal secretion. However, they suggest that a more likely explanation is the faster release of nutrients from the food, orincreased bioavailability, as a result of the reduced particle sizes. The release of both CCK and ghrelin is affected by the presence of nutrients in the gastrointestinal tract.
The authors conclude that their findings indicate that chewing more enhances satiety, and at the same time chewing less may increase the risk of weight gain due to reduced satiety. However, increased mastication did not result in eating less three hours later, and the longer term effects are unknown. Moreover, they acknowledge that an important limitation of the study is that the effect of mastication cannot be isolated from other factors that may have led to increased satiety. These other factors are for instance eating rate, oral processing time, and the physical characteristics of the food bolus that is swallowed; an incentive for further research, they say. Future studies should also test other types of foods, examine mastication behaviours in women, lean versus obese people, and look into potential health effects of the increased blood glucose response.
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