😅. time to officially dish out 🍽 the news!. Super stoked to announce my appointment as a Stadtman Tenure Track Investigator @NIDDKgov.@IRPatNIH where I'll be studying the impact of diet & metabolism on human neurochemistry! 🍔🍦🥗🧠. Hiring @ all levels!.

RT @KevinH_PhD: After 21 years at my dream job, I’m very sad to announce my early retirement from the National Institutes of Health. My lif….

RT @IRPatNIH: Did you miss the 2024 NIH Research Festival last week? From the @NIH Distinguished Scholars Symposium to the 17th Annual Phil….

RT @NIHClinicalCntr: Curious about keto diets and sleep? Scientists at NIDDK want to know if an investigational dietary supplement impacts….

AND @Dr_Paulevj ! ☺️.

/FIN! 🧠😃. Huge thanks to our (mostly not on this platform) team! @DrChung_PEndo @CourvillePhd @nutrineuroizzy @AlexInMed et al!.

Our results do NOT discount the experience of folks who have trouble controlling their intake of ultraprocessed products high in fat+sugar. Rather, they call into question the narrative that illicit-drug-like postingestive dopamine responses promote excess ultraprocessed intake.

So, turns out, that in our large (n=50) sample, using same PET methods that measure the effect of drugs of abuse on 🧠dopamine, we see a small, highly variable effect of ultraprocessed fat+sugar in the gut that's more on par with, say, *perhaps*, nicotine, not psychostimulants.

but (2) the more postingestive dopamine that was released to the milkshake, the more calories people ate specifically from the high-fat, high-sugar cookies that were on offer at an ad libitum meal test on their last inpatient day! 🍪 🍽️

We also explore correlates of the postingestive dopamine response and found that not only was there (1) more dopamine released to postingestive milkshake signals if there was greater subjective hunger (after a standardized overnight fast) .

We explored what features could distinguish folks who showed the expected postingestive striatal response from those who didn't. SPOILER: Not much. Not even their glycemic responses. ("Responders" DID rate the milkshake as ⬆️ pleasant & wanted more of it though 😅)

There WAS quite a lot of variability in the postingestive striatal dopamine response to the milkshake! . Buuuuuuuuuuut, surprisingly, that variability was not related to adiposity (BMI or %body fat).

Surprisingly, postingestive D2BP was not significantly different from fasting D2BP. suggesting that the presence of this ultraprocessed sugar+fat shake in the gut was more like. weak sauce. to striatal dopamine.

we expected to see a ⬇️ in striatal dopamine D2 receptor binding potential (D2BP) as measured by [11C]raclopride in the postingestive state compared to fasting. i.e., dopamine release!

So, we designed a controlled inpatient feeding study to measure postingestive dopamine response to milkshake w/PET neuroimaging methods typically used to measure dopamine effect of drugs of abuse in 50 young healthy adults over a wide range in BMI (20-45 kg/m2) and.

. but as far as we can tell, only ((((((checks notes))))) 3⃣ human studies (totalling 28 participants) have investigated the postingestive response to a macronutrient mixture containing at least fat + carb on brain dopamine using a standard PET displacement method.

Would such a potentially potent combo of fat + sugar in the gut have similar impact on brain dopamine in everyone??? 🤔 . Some work suggests that people with obesity might have a ⬇️ 🧠 response to these nutrients. .

Intriguingly, new animal work shows that combining fat WITH sugar may have a synergistic effect on brain dopamine. a concept put forward by a few human studies (using functional magnetic imaging) as well.

Some really cool animal work demonstrates that the brain rapidly responds to the TASTE 😋 of a yummy reward by releasing dopamine. When these fat or sugar calories are sensed by the GUT, dopamine release lasts a while 🐢.

Is it true that gut-brain signals after consuming ultra-processed foods high in fat+sugar cause exaggerated dopamine release in human brain reward regions akin to what you'd expect from addictive drugs??. The answer may surprise you!!💡🧠. Our latest work from @KevinH_PhD 's lab!