Counting on food with fake fats to help you ___1___ last year’s bathing suit? Better count again. Because a new study with rats shows that low-cal fat substitutes can actually ___2___. The work appears in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience. [Susan Swithers, Sean Ogden and Terry Davidson, "Fat Substitutes Promote Weight Gain in Rats Consuming High-Fat Diets"]

Dieters can choose from an array of snacktackular options in which sugars and fats are replaced by artificial, low-calorie substitutes. That sleight of hand seems ___3___. You can let your body think it’s getting the sweets and fats it craves while keeping the calorie count to a minimum.

But the new study suggests that this strategy is likely to backfire. Rats that consumed a mix of full-fat chips and chips with olestra ___4___ eating more and got fatter than rats that noshed on regular chips alone.

Their bodies were apparently getting mixed messages. A mouthful of fat is usually a signal that calories are coming, and the body reacts by getting ready to burn fuel. But olestra, which tastes like fat, carries no calories at all. So the body soon learns to ___5___ in the face of fat. All fat. Even real fat. Because as Shakespeare almost said, a chip by any other name still swells your seat.
【視聽版科學(xué)小組榮譽出品】
slip into promote weight gain ingenious wound up stand down
指望著只吃點人造脂肪就能把自己塞進去年的泳衣里?省省吧~一項以小白鼠為對象的研究顯示低卡路里的脂肪替代物其實會增加體重。這項研究發(fā)現(xiàn)刊登在《行為神經(jīng)科學(xué)》上。 節(jié)食者們吃的小食中都是代替糖類和脂肪的人造的低卡路里替代物。這個方法聽上去是妙哉妙哉,在攝入糖類和脂肪的同時又能將卡路里的攝入量控制在最低水平。 不過,研究表明,這個“妙招”貌似帶來了“杯具”。吃全脂薯條和蔗糖聚酯薯條的小鼠要比只吃普通薯條的小鼠吃得多,長得肥。 小鼠的身體接收的是混合信號。一口脂肪吃下去通常會給身體發(fā)出信號“卡路里來啦”,于是身體就會做好準(zhǔn)備燃燒脂肪。但口感類似脂肪的蔗糖聚酯事實上不含任何卡路里。因此身體也就逐漸條件反射了,不管是不是真正的脂肪,身體都不會采取任何行動。正如莎士比亞所說,任那薯條以何為名,腫起來的終歸是你的pp~