Psychological distress and elevated cortisol secretion promote abdominal fat, a feature of the Metabolic Syndrome. Effects of stress reduction interventions on abdominal fat are unknown. Forty-seven ...overweight/obese women (mean BMI =31.2) were randomly assigned to a 4-month intervention or waitlist group to explore effects of a mindfulness program for stress eating. We assessed mindfulness, psychological distress, eating behavior, weight, cortisol awakening response (CAR), and abdominal fat (by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry) pre- and posttreatment. Treatment participants improved in mindfulness, anxiety, and external-based eating compared to control participants. Groups did not differ on average CAR, weight, or abdominal fat over time. However, obese treatment participants showed significant reductions in CAR and maintained body weight, while obese control participants had stable CAR and gained weight. Improvements in mindfulness, chronic stress, and CAR were associated with reductions in abdominal fat. This proof of concept study suggests that mindfulness training shows promise for improving eating patterns and the CAR, which may reduce abdominal fat over time.
Theoretically driven smartphone-delivered behavioral interventions that target mechanisms underlying eating behavior are lacking. In this study, we administered a 28-day self-paced ...smartphone-delivered intervention rooted in an operant conditioning theoretical framework that targets craving-related eating using mindful eating practices. At pre-intervention and 1-month post-intervention, we assessed food cravings among adult overweight or obese women (
N
= 104;
M
age = 46.2 ± 14.1 years;
M
BMI = 31.5 ± 4.5) using ecological momentary assessment via text message (SMS), self-reported eating behavior (e.g., trait food craving), and in-person weight. Seventy-eight participants (75.0%) completed the intervention within 7 months (‘all completers’), and of these, 64 completed the intervention within 3 months (‘timely completers’). Participants experienced significant reductions in craving-related eating (40.21% reduction;
p
< .001) and self-reported overeating behavior (trait food craving,
p
< .001; other measures
p
s < .01). Reductions in trait food craving were significantly correlated with weight loss for timely completers (
r
= .30,
p
= .020), this pattern of results was also evident in all completers (
r
= .22,
p
= .065). Taken together, results suggest that smartphone-delivered mindful eating training targeting craving-related eating may (1) target behavior that impacts a relative metabolic pathway, and (2) represent a low-burden and highly disseminable method to reduce problematic overeating among overweight individuals.
ClinicalTrials.gov registration: NCT02694731.
Motivation is an integral factor in substance use treatment and long-term recovery. However, it is unclear what role intrinsic and extrinsic motivation play across different treatment modalities. A ...meta-analysis (N = 84) was performed to estimate the pooled effect size of Motivational Interviewing (MI; primarily targeting intrinsic motivation) and contingency management (CM; primarily targeting extrinsic motivation) at different follow-up periods. Collapsed across all substance types, CM had a significant effect at 3-month follow-up, only. In contrast, MI had a significant effect at 6-month follow-up, only. CM had small and medium effects on multiple substances at 3-month follow-up (i.e., tobacco, marijuana, stimulants, polysubstances), but not at 6-month follow-up. MI had 1 significant medium effect at 3-month follow-up (i.e., marijuana), but several significant small effects at 6-month follow-up (i.e., alcohol, tobacco, polysubstances). This meta-analysis suggests that both CM and MI promote reductions in a range of substances, even several months after the intervention concludes. Further, these results provide some evidence that extrinsically focused CM may produce medium follow-up effects in the short run, but intrinsically focused MI may produce small but durable follow-up effects. However, this interpretation is complicated by the differences between the MI and CM studies that preclude statistical tests comparing effect sizes, and few studies assessed motivation itself. Future researchers should investigate how motivational dynamics impact lasting outcomes in substance use treatment.
Purpose
National mandates require cancer centers provide comprehensive survivorship care. We created an 8-session, group intervention, the Survivorship Wellness Group Program (SWGP), that covered 8 ...topics: nutrition, physical activity, stress, sleep/fatigue, sexuality/body image, emotional wellbeing/fear of cancer recurrence, spirituality/meaning, and health promotion/goal setting. This study examined the acceptability and preliminary outcomes of SWGP.
Methods
We evaluated SWGP using questionnaire data collected at program entry and 15-week follow-up. Questionnaires assessed acceptability and impact on anxiety, depression, quality of life, and perceived knowledge of topics. Enrollees who consented to participate in research and completed the baseline and 15-week follow-up were included in the analysis (
N
= 53). We assessed acceptability and preliminary outcomes using paired-samples t-tests. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, SWGP transitioned to telehealth partway through data collection. Post-hoc analyses compared outcomes by intervention delivery.
Results
Participants completed an average of 7.44/8 classes. Participants reported a mean response of 3.42/4 regarding overall program satisfaction and 90.6% reported being “very likely” to recommend SWGP. SWGP was associated with decreases in anxiety and depression; increases in physical, emotional, functional, and overall quality of life; and increases in knowledge of all health behavior domains. No outcomes differed significantly between delivery in person versus telehealth.
Conclusions
SWGP offers an acceptable and replicable model for cancer centers to meet national survivorship care guidelines.
Implication for cancer survivors
SWGP provides a comprehensive service for cancer survivors post-treatment, and was associated with better quality of life, fewer mental health symptoms, and increased knowledge in multiple domains of wellness.
In general, glucose consumption improves cognitive performance; however, it is unknown whether glucose specifically alters attentional food bias, and how this process may vary by BMI status. We ...hypothesized that glucose consumption would increase attentional food bias among individuals of obese BMI status more so than among individuals of lean BMI status. Participants (N = 35) completed the n-back, a working memory task modified to assess attentional food bias (ATT-Food), under fasting and glucose challenge conditions. We computed pre-post changes in ATT-Food, blood glucose and insulin (∆BG & ∆BI), and perceived task-stress (∆stress). After the second cognitive test and blood draw, participants ate lunch and completed a “taste test” of highly palatable foods, and we recorded food consumption. Pre-post changes in ATT-Food were greater among participants of obese (relative to lean) BMI status (F(1,33) = 5.108, p = .031). Greater ∆ATT-Food was significantly associated with greater ∆BG (r = .462, p = .007) and reduced ∆stress (r =-.422, p = .011), and marginally associated with greater taste-test eating (r =.325, p = .057), but was not associated with ∆BI. Our findings suggest that individuals of obese BMI status may exhibit “sweet cognition,” as indexed by greater attentional food bias following glucose ingestion, relative to individuals of lean BMI status. Among individuals of obese BMI status, sweet cognition may arise from difficulty broadening attention toward non-food cues after consuming a high glucose load, thereby potentially perpetuating sugar consumption. If confirmed by further research, measures of sweet cognition may help identify individuals with a phenotype of risk for obesity and greater sugar consumption, who may benefit from tailored interventions.
•Individuals of obese BMI status show greater attentional food bias after consuming glucose•We refer to changes in attention to food cues following glucose ingestion as “sweet cognition”•Greater sweet cognition was associated with greater decreases in acute mental stress•Greater sweet cognition was associated with greater non-homeostatic eating of sugar-laden food•Sweet cognition may be due to greater capacity among lean individuals to attend to non-food cues after consuming glucose.
Objectives
When experiencing negative mood, people often eat to improve their mood. A learned association between mood and eating may cultivate frequent food cravings, detracting from health goals. ...Training in mindful eating may target this cycle of emotion-craving-eating by teaching individuals to manage urges when experiencing negative mood. We examined the impact of a mobile mindful eating intervention on the link between negative mood and food cravings among overweight women.
Methods
In a single-arm trial, participants (
n
= 64,
M
age = 46.1 years,
M
BMI = 31.5 kg/m
2
) completed ecological momentary assessments of negative mood and food cravings 3 times/day for 3 days pre- and post-intervention, as well as 1-month post-intervention. Using multilevel linear regression, we compared associations between negative mood and food craving strength at pre- vs. post-intervention (model 1) and post-intervention vs. 1-month follow-up (model 2).
Results
In model 1, negative mood interacted with time point (
β
= − .20,
SE
= .09,
p
= .02, 95% CI − .38, − .03) to predict craving strength, indicating that the within-person association between negative mood and craving strength was significantly weaker at post-intervention (
β
= 0.18) relative to pre-intervention (
β
= 0.38). In model 2, negative mood did not interact with time point to predict craving strength (
β
= .13,
SE
= .09,
p
= .10, 95% CI − .03, .31); the association did not significantly differ between post-intervention and 1-month follow-up.
Conclusions
Training in mindful eating weakened the mood-craving association from pre- to post-intervention. The weakened association remained at follow-up. Our findings highlight the mood-craving link as a target-worthy mechanism of mindful eating that should be assessed in clinical trials.
Trial Registration
NCT02694731
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