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The Lizard Spit Diet:
Other | Thursday 17th May 2012 | Osh
As unappealing as it sounds, the saliva from Gila Monster Lizards has been found to reduce cravings for food, including chocolate. The lizard’s spit could prevent you buying that overpriced mid-morning Mars bar.
Unknown & Unexpected:
Scientists have discovered that drugs formed of the lizards’ saliva can help you enjoy a balanced diet. Researchers at the Sahlgrenska Acamedy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden have tested the drug on rats, whose cravings for specific food types caved.
Assistant Professor Karolina Skibicka has published a journal of Neuroscience, explained that the craving-beater effect of the drug “…is both unknown and quite unexpected…”. She continued to clarify that a human’s decision to eat is “…linked to the same mechanisms in the brain which control addictive behaviours.” This is why it is often so difficult to break eating habits and vary your diet.
Tested lab rats illustrated a reduction in food desires after being given the pill, because the saliva in it directly affects the reward and motivation regions of the brain.
The way we eat is formed of a mixture of physical needs (hunger), dietary requirements for health, and personal choice. However, as Suzanne Dickson, the professor of Physiology at Sahlgrenska stated that “Most dieting fails because we are obsessed with the desire to eat, especially tempting foods like sweets.”
Exendin-4:
The drug, called Exendin-4 can, according to Dickson, “…help obese people take control of their weight.” It can also help those suffering with type 2 diabetes as it could help control blood sugar Reader’s Digest levels.
Diabetes arises when a person’s body does not produce enough insulin to create the normal blood glucose level required to live. An increasing number of type 2 patients are offered a pharmaceutical preparation called Exenatide, which is known to help control blood sugar. It is an artificial form of Exendin-4.
Gila Monster Lizards (Heloderma Suspectums), North America’s largest breed of lizard, has also given hope to those with eating disorders. The saliva-based drug can particularly help compulsive overeating, and possibly even the craving for alcohol.
Skibicka verified that alcohol cravings devise from the same area of the brain that creates and controls food cravings. She continued; “…it would be very interesting to test whether Exedin-4 reduces the cravings for alcohol.”
Diet Struggles:
This year, Reader’s Digest formulated the top ten ways to beat food cravings. Paula Dranov, of the publication verified that if you suddenly vary your dietary habits, the fact that you are introducing new foods to your body helps weaken those old cravings. In fact, Marcia Pelchat, PhD described how quickly this change can happen.
Pelchat carried out a study across a five day period, in which volunteers consumed blank dietary-supplement beverages. The volunteers craved far fewer of their favourite, or trigger foods by the end of the study.
The nutrition and Weight Management director and MD at Boston Medical Centre, Caroline Apovian rationalises physically throwing away food as a way to eradicate your classic cravings. Even if you succumb to buying the food you’re after, she rationalises; “You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment that you’ve linked to your binge.”
If you’re not up for throwing food away, drastically changing your habits, drinking ridiculous amounts of water, napping all day, planning every last thing you will ever eat or jogging endlessly, Exendin-4 could just be the way forward.
Like it or not, the way everyone eats is different. And the way we select what we eat is different to one another. Therefore, it can be more difficult more some, more than others to break life-long habits and actually lose weight or develop a balanced diet. Eating patterns are derived from a number of factors, including physical frame, family or inherent diet history, lifestyle, the people you surround yourself with, and your economic income.
Diet Pills:
Diets and diet pills can be dangerous. That is a well-known fact. But Exendin-4 could be the latest addition to the weight-loss market for us diet-obsessed members of the public.
With over 165,000 people suffering with an eating disorder in the UK, 10% of which conclude as fatal cases, any safer diet-boosting pill can only be a good thing.
Whether we are dependent on certain foods to control our mood and well-being, or simply enjoy the odd treat from time to time, Exendin-4 could flatten those bottomless cravings. Say hello to a slimmer, slender, more saliva-induced you.
Marianne Calnan
