This Type Of Birth Control Could Be Making You Crave Junk Food

The best birth control is easy to use and effective, but nearly all of these medications can come with side effects. The Depo-Provera shot, an effective, discreet and easy to use hormonal birth control method that requires a shot once every three months, causes one in particular: Significant weight gain for about 25 percent of the women who use it. Back in 2009, a large study showed that Depo-Provera was linked to an average weight gain of 11 pounds across all users over three years. However, this was concentrated in only a quarter of the women who used the shot, meaning that the average amount that this subgroup gained was significantly higher.  In a new pilot study of eight healthy women, researchers set out to find out why this occurs. They discovered that the shot led to heightened activity in the parts of the brain that are linked to food cravings, making it harder for women on the medication to resist junk food. In the course of the study, the women who received the Depo-Provera shot had more activity in parts of the brain that govern appetite when looking at delicious high-calorie foods compared to baseline measurements that were taken before they received the shot. If these results are confirmed in more wide-ranging studies, it could be that there’s a neural explanation, not a metabolic one, for why some women gain weight on the Depo-Provera shot. The researchers hope that this discovery may also provide women and their healthcare p...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news