Department of Nutrition, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, 135 Dauer Drive, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
Oregon Research Institute, 1776 Millrace Dr, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA.
J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2018 Jun;5(3):580-587. doi: 10.1007/s40615-017-0403-8. Epub 2017 Aug 4.
In the USA, Hispanics and African-Americans show elevated obesity, yet little is known about possible ethnic/racial differences in brain response during intake of palatable foods. To examine potential differences between non-Hispanic white (nHW) and racial/ethnic minority individuals, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess brain response to intake of eucaloric milkshakes that were either high-sugar or high-fat and a calorie-free, tasteless control solution. Our sample included healthy-weight adolescents who identified as African-American and/or Hispanic (minority, n = 27) and non-Hispanic white (nHW, n = 106). Minority participants showed elevated response in the pre-/postcentral gyrus, precuneus, and left thalamus in response to the high-sugar milkshake compared to high-fat milkshake. To confirm these effects were not driven by differences in body mass or a function of unequal cell sizes, we performed the same analyses in minority participants and a randomly selected subsample of nHW participants (n = 27) that were matched on BMI percentile. Similar to the full sample, we observed an elevated ventral posterior thalamic response to high-sugar milkshake in minority participants. This effect held after controlling for self-reported sugar and fat intake. These results suggest that African-American and Hispanic groups may have elevated response to specifically high-sugar foods in regions of the brain associated with sensory processing, providing novel information regarding the possible neural underpinnings of the disproportional risk for obesity seen in African-American and Hispanic populations.
在美国，西班牙裔和非裔美国人的肥胖率较高，但对于在摄入美味食物时大脑反应可能存在的种族差异知之甚少。为了研究非西班牙裔白种人（nHW）和少数族裔个体之间潜在的差异，我们使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来评估摄入热量相等的奶昔时大脑的反应，这些奶昔分别为高糖、高脂肪和无热量、无味的对照溶液。我们的样本包括健康体重的青少年，他们自认为是非裔美国人和/或西班牙裔（少数民族，n=27）和非西班牙裔白种人（nHW，n=106）。与高脂肪奶昔相比，少数民族参与者在摄入高糖奶昔时，在前/后中央回、楔前叶和左侧丘脑的反应增强。为了确认这些影响不是由体重差异或细胞大小不均的功能引起的，我们在少数民族参与者和随机选择的 nHW 参与者（n=27）的亚样本中进行了相同的分析，这些参与者的 BMI 百分位数相匹配。与全样本一样，我们观察到少数民族参与者对高糖奶昔的腹后丘脑反应增强。在控制自我报告的糖和脂肪摄入量后，这种效应仍然存在。这些结果表明，非裔美国人和西班牙裔群体的大脑可能对与感官处理相关的特定高糖食物有更高的反应，为非裔美国人和西班牙裔人群中肥胖风险不成比例的可能神经基础提供了新的信息。
