Feeling a little bloated from your Christmas dinner? Then you should eat more sugary sweets to battle those overeating pangs.

Norwegian researchers have found that eating sugary desserts could help facilitate digestion and loosen stomach muscles to make the food you've eaten settle easier.

"A sweet taste can allow the stomach to hold more, and we can eat a little more without experiencing discomfort," says Dr. Arnold Berstad, of Lovisenberg Diakonale Hospital in Oslo told the New York Post.

Berstad and Dr. Jorgen Valeur said sugar stimulates the vagus nerve, which controls digestion, speech, breathing and other functions. The stimulated vagus nerve will signal the stomach muscle to loosen up and allow more food in.

However the effect doesn't last long enough for the next meal. In fact eating too much sugary dessert could actually fool the stomach into thinking that it's not really full. Sugar's effect on the vagus nerve also accounts for the tendency to overindulge on sweets. Dieters should take note.

Berstad and Valeur's findings are published in this month's edition of The Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association.