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Clinical Trial
. 2024 Mar 27;14(1):7294.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-57687-7.

Mindfulness meditation modulates stress-eating and its neural correlates

Alyssa Torske #  1   2   3 , Benno Bremer #  4   5 , Britta Karen Hölzel  4   5 , Alexander Maczka  4   5 , Kathrin Koch  4   5   6
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Mindfulness meditation modulates stress-eating and its neural correlates

Alyssa Torske et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Stress-related overeating can lead to excessive weight gain, increasing the risk of metabolic and cardiovascular disease. Mindfulness meditation has been demonstrated to reduce stress and increase interoceptive awareness and could, therefore, be an effective intervention for stress-related overeating behavior. To investigate the effects of mindfulness meditation on stress-eating behavior, meditation-naïve individuals with a tendency to stress-eat (N = 66) participated in either a 31-day, web-based mindfulness meditation training or a health training condition. Behavioral and resting-state fMRI data were acquired before and after the intervention. Mindfulness meditation training, in comparison to health training, was found to significantly increase mindfulness while simultaneously reducing stress- and emotional-eating tendencies as well as food cravings. These behavioral results were accompanied by functional connectivity changes between the hypothalamus, reward regions, and several areas of the default mode network in addition to changes observed between the insula and somatosensory areas. Additional changes between seed regions (i.e., hypothalamus and insula) and brain areas attributed to emotion regulation, awareness, attention, and sensory integration were observed. Notably, these changes in functional connectivity correlated with behavioral changes, thereby providing insight into the underlying neural mechanisms of the effects of mindfulness on stress-eating.Clinical trial on the ISRCTN registry: trial ID ISRCTN12901054.

Keywords: Mindfulness, Stress, Eating-Behavior, fMRI, Resting state functional connectivity.

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Conflict of interest statement

This study was supported by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) grant to author KK (BMBF 01EA1807H), and the preparation of this paper was supported by the enable Cluster (http://enable-cluster.de) in addition to a private donation made by Maria Tussi Kluge. Author AT was additionally funded by the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes. Author BKH is the author of commercially available books and online mindfulness-based interventions. The remaining authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Data acquisition process (June 2019—June 2021). MMT Mindfulness Meditation Training, HT Health Training.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Visualization of the change in various self-report measures between T1 (pre-intervention) and T2 (post-intervention). Experimental group = MMT; Control group = HT.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Overview of the FC changes observed between the hypothalamus (A), the insula (B), and the whole brain. HT Hypothalamus, BG Basal ganglia, PreSMA Pre supplementary motor area. PCC Precuneus, AG Angular gyrus, INS Insula, PoG Postcentral gyrus, IPL Inferior parietal lobe.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Scatter plots of significant and trending results of the linear regression between the change in functional connectivity and the change in behavioral measures. Dashed lines represent the 95% confidence intervals. FC Functional connectivity, R Right hemispheric, L Left hemispheric, lat.  lateral, med. medial, AG Angular gyrus, vPCC Ventral posterior cingulate cortex, FCQT Food Cravings Questionnaire—trait, MAAS Mindful Attention and Awareness Scale, SSES Salzburg Stress Eating Scale).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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