Could supervised exercise help you train your body's internal signals? Researchers at Duke University are aiming to uncover just how true is the "exercise as medicine" adage. In an upcoming study, researchers will monitor participants' heart rates during one-hour, supervised exercise routines and how those heart rates effect interoceptive signals and interoceptive responsivity of adults with and without a diagnosis of anorexia spectrum disorder in an attempt to collect enough pilot data to justify a much broader clinical trial. 

Prior research has already determined that interoceptive awareness is a big player when it comes to managing both healthy lifestyles and disordered eating. If awareness of hunger is key, then the next step is learning how we can re-train the body, that it would continue to communicate that hunger. 

The long-term goal of this study is to determine whether supervised exercise can play a bigger role in behavioral intervention for those diagnosed with eating disorders. Ultimately: is it possible to utilize natural methods, such as exercise, to re-train your body's energy needs signals and, in-turn, your response to those signals? 

Here at TNT, we look forward to keeping you up-to-date on the outcomes! In the meantime, it's well-known that re-training your taste buds is a viable option to coping with your interoceptive responses to energy needs, that is - even if you cannot control when you feel hunger, at least you can control how you respond to it. We are happy to help you figure out the first (or next) steps to managing your personal hunger response - contact us today! 

To learn more about this study, click here.