Sex is good for a lot of stuff like burning calories and also feeling super great. Now sex may even be good for curbing your unruly appetite! A recent study by York University researcher Caroline Davis and colleagues at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health revealed that variants of the Oxytocin Receptor (OXTR) gene contribute to why some of us overeat or engage in episodes of binge eating.
So rather than “cleansing” your body with lemon water and cayenne pepper, you may want to consider finding ways to boost Oxytocin. Not sure how to do that? That’s what we’re here for! Besides dancing, singing Karaoke, and “treating a friend,” all things that typically involve non-diet approved food and booze consumption, you can actually just have lots of sex!
According to the study, oxytocin influences survival traits such as those used to manage stress. The evolutionarily ancient molecule enhances prosocial and related behaviors like helping others. More selfishly, increases in Oxytocin tend to decrease appetite — particularly the consumption of sweet carbohydrates, like deez nuts.
For the last 10 years, Davis and Dr. James Kennedy have examined a group of individuals between 27 and 50 with a broad range of body types and several with binge-eating habits. Blood samples and subsequent DNA testing done on participants supported claims that the role of genes does, in fact, give rise to traits that regulate behavior, and oxytocin does influence overeating. In other words, by changing the levels of oxytocin in your body through activities like sex and even a little hugging, you could quiet that voice in your brain telling you to eat as many hotdogs, tacos, and milkshakes as humanly possible.
(Via SSIB.org)
