Comfort Food, Sex Found to Change Brain Chemicals for at Least Seven Days

Google Image results for "comfort food and sex"
were not encouraging, so this is what you get.
From I Just Love Food.

Today in the somewhat obvious news department:  WTOP reports that researchers at the University of Cincinnati have found that both sex and comfort food reduce stress. The study may seem like a waste of time, but the researchers also discovered the neural pathways by which the stress reduction occurs, and that the reduction lasts for a longer period than previously expected. These findings may eventually aid people with sex addiction (if you believe in that sort of thing) or extreme obesity.

You can read the study itself here at PNAS. The researchers found that sucrose triggers most of the stress dampening in the brain. Here's a quote for the technically inclined:

"Moreover, sucrose intake increases mRNA and protein expression in the BLA for numerous genes linked with functional and/or structural plasticity. Lastly, stress dampening by sucrose is persistent, which is consistent with long-term changes in neural activity after synaptic remodeling."

Mm mmm! nothing gets me hot, bothered, and hungry like protein expression in the BLA!