London, Apr 24: Simply thinking yourself thinner actually helps you to get rid of the excess weight, a new report says. Contradicting prior studies, which suggested that thinking about food increased hunger pangs, British scientists have shown that actively remembering your last meal suppresses appetite and reduces the desire to snack on junk food. The study suggested that techniques such as hypnotism and behavioural therapy could help ward off hunger for junk food and snacks. Researchers at Birmingham University devised a series of experiments involving 47 women to test the impact of memory of food on snacking.

The participants were given lunch of biscuits and split into two groups. One group was asked to write a detailed description of their lunch, while the rest were asked to describe their journey to the campus. The Study detailed in the magazine New Scientist, found that women who had been asked to write a description of their lunch - making the memory of it vivid in their minds - ate far fewer biscuits than those who had been asked to describe their journey to work. The findings raised the possibility that drugs designed to boost activity in the hippocampus, the part of the brain involved in remembering recent meals, could suppress appetite, stydy author Dr Suzanne Higgs said.

UNI