Yes, Rene Descartes, the mind IS connected to the body!

And this study shows another absolutely astonishing way in which the connection apparently works.

A psychologist has shown that there is a significant correlation between what we believe we have eaten and how our metabolism responds. In an experiment, clinical psychologist Alia Crum found that people who believed they’d consumed a 650-calorie milkshake experienced a drop in levels of ghrelin (the “hunger hormone,” which both sends the body looking for food and slows its metabolism) THREE TIMES that of people who believed they’d consumed a 104-calorie milkshake. (Yes, the two groups were consuming exactly the same milkshake.)

Yep, the study seems to suggest that what we THINK we’ve eaten can actually have an effect on our metabolism and our feelings of satiation or hunger. Some might think this is a call for lying on food labels. Me? I see it as yet another argument for eating more butter.