Can’t Control Your Craving For Sweets? You Can Now Blame Your Liver

It turns out that it’s not your willpower or just your unhealthy habits that are responsible for you reaching out for your favourite sweet, research reveals that the fault may lie in your liver.?

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Researchers at the University of Copenhagen discovered that people with a specific variant of the FGF21 gene (a hormone) were predisposed to having sugar cravings by up to 20%.?

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Strict or not people with this particular variant will find it very hard to resist the urge to indulge in sweets, claims the study.?

The study published in the journal Cell Metabolism, suggests that this is the first time that role of the liver on controlling of human eating behaviour is being assessed through the hormone FGF21.?

"We're now a step closer to understanding the molecular basis of the sweet tooth—something that has not been well understood," Matthew Gillum, assistant professor of biological sciences at the university who co-authored the study told The Telegraph. "We think the liver sends messages to the brain and influences eating behaviour."

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Gillum and co would like to conduct similar tests on a larger group of people to gather more information about how the hormone acts in different individuals. The study has also opened the door to assess how the FGF21 gene is associated with hormonal levels as well as metabolic conditions, such as type 2 diabetes or obesity. ?