Aversive viscerally referred states and thirst accompanying the sating of hunger motivation by rapid digestion of glucosaccharides

Associative conditioning of satiety indicates that concentrated maltodextrin (cMD) may induce a mildly aversive visceral signal within 20 min of its ingestion, as well as satiating normally. Individuals' awareness of this adverse state was tested on ratings of statistically distinct descriptions of factors liable to suppress hunger, whether distressing or comfortably satisfying. Wanted amount of a food and the pleasantness of eating it correlated highly for each of five foods, once again refuting the widespread presumption that “pleasant” refers to sensory pleasure; hence, as in previous reports, suppression of hunger was measured as a reduction of the averaged pleasantness of functionally related foods. At 20 min after the start of ingestion of a small meal on a near-empty stomach, cMD reliably reduced hunger. The greatest influence on hunger, besides normal sating, was thirst, but there were also tendencies to nausea and bloat, although all less than after a full sized meal. Visceral processes shortly after a meal can create dissociable conscious states, only one of which is satiety for food.

Research Highlights
► Concentrated maltodextrin (cMD) reduced appetite for food after 20 min.
► Pleasantness correlated highly with wanted amount; thus “pleasant” is not pleasurable.
► The greatest influence of cMD on hunger, besides normal sating, was thirst.
► The cMD also tended to induce factorially distinct nausea or bloat.
► Normal digestion can generate aversive states dissociable from satiety for food.