When it comes to goodies, who in the world can resist temptations? Apparently, men are able to resist the temptation of eating their favorite foods better than women are, according to researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York.

 

Their study, appearing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, showed that brain scans of both men and women revealed that men are better at suppressing their appetite when looking, smelling and tasting their favorite treats.

 

For the study, Dr. Gene-Jack Wang and his colleagues used positron emission tomography in 23 healthy subjects to tag areas of the brain that are activated when they were presented with the sights and smells of the dishes they liked best. The researchers found what they were before undergoing the scans. The food included pizza, chocolate cake and burgers.

 

The study involved 13 women and 10 men. Both women and men said that the inhibition technique previously learned (cognitive inhibition) did decrease their hunger, but women’s brains stayed stimulated while men’s brain activity went down. This might be the reason for which women have a hard time losing weight compared to men.

 

Dr. Wang said: “This decreased inhibitory control in women could be a major factor contributing to the observed differences in the prevalence rates of obesity and eating disorders…and may also underline women’s lower success in losing weight while dieting when compared with men.”

 

Clinical studies have shown that men who follow a diet are able to lose about 10 percent of their weight on average over a three-month period. Women, on the other hand, manage a decrease of only about 5 percent, Dr. Wang said.

 

The findings of the study might explain why there are more obese women than men but several factors still need to be considered when it comes to obesity. They include cultural differences, stress and body chemistry, which are known to influence men and women’s brains differently.

 

“There is something going on in the female, the signal is so much different,” Dr. Wang said.

 

According to a study released in 2007 by the National Center for Health Statistics, 33.3 percent of men and 35.3 percent of women were obese in 2006. Obesity is known to further lead to heart disease, type 2 diabetes and, according to recent studies, obesity might also be a major factor leading to different types of cancer. The bad news is that obesity rates have been increasing as Americans eat more high-calorie food and exercise less.

 

The study was funded by the General Clinical Research Center of Stony Brook University, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.