1. Reduction in neural activation to high-calorie food cues in obese endometrial cancer survivors after a behavioral lifestyle intervention: a pilot study.
- Author
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Nock NL, Dimitropolous A, Tkach J, Frasure H, and von Gruenigen V
- Subjects
- Body Water, Brain blood supply, Female, Food, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Oxygen blood, Photic Stimulation, Pilot Projects, Brain physiopathology, Brain Mapping, Cues, Endometrial Neoplasms etiology, Endometrial Neoplasms pathology, Endometrial Neoplasms psychology, Life Style, Obesity complications, Obesity pathology, Obesity psychology
- Abstract
Background: Obesity increases the risk of endometrial cancer (EC) and obese EC patients have the highest risk of death among all obesity-associated cancers. However, only two lifestyle interventions targeting this high-risk population have been conducted. In one trial, food disinhibition, as determined by the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire, decreased post-intervention compared to baseline, suggesting an increase in emotional eating and, potentially, an increase in food related reward. Therefore, we evaluated appetitive behavior using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a visual food task in 8 obese, Stage I/II EC patients before and after a lifestyle intervention (Survivors in Uterine Cancer Empowered by Exercise and a Healthy Diet, SUCCEED), which aimed to improve nutritional and exercise behaviors over 16 group sessions in 6 months using social cognitive theory., Results: Congruent to findings in the general obese population, we found that obese EC patients, at baseline, had increased activation in response to high- vs. low-calorie food cues after eating a meal in brain regions associated with food reward (insula, cingulate gyrus; precentral gyrus; whole brain cluster corrected, p < 0.05). At 6 months post-intervention compared to baseline, we observed decreased activation for the high-calorie vs. non-food contrast, post-meal, in regions involved in food reward and motivation (posterior cingulate, cingulate gyrus, lateral globus pallidus, thalamus; claustrum; whole brain cluster corrected, p < 0.05)., Conclusions: Our preliminary results suggest behavioral lifestyle interventions may help to reduce high-calorie food reward in obese EC survivors who are at a high-risk of death. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate such changes.
- Published
- 2012
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