Health & Medicine - Posted by Helen Dodson-Yale on Wednesday, April 6, 2011 12:18 - 2 Comments 
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(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Compulsive eaters think like addicts
Food addicts respond to cues, like chocolate milkshakes, in the same way a drug addict responds to getting a fix, a new study shows. The research is the first to link symptoms of addictive eating behavior with specific patterns of brain activity in both obese and lean individuals. (Credit: iStockphoto)
YALE (US) — Both lean and overweight people who are addicted to food have brain patterns that are similar to those of drug addicts.
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The findings—published in the Archives of General Psychiatry—are from the first study to explore whether lean as well as obese individuals who exhibit symptoms of addictive eating behavior have similar neural responses.
Researchers at Yale University asked 48 healthy adolescent women ranging from lean to obese to complete the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS), which applies the diagnostic criteria for substance dependence to eating behavior. Using brain-imaging procedures such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers examined the relation of food addiction symptoms, as assessed by the YFAS, with the women’s brain activity in response to food-related tasks.
The first task looked at how the brain responded to cues signaling the impending delivery of a highly palatable food (chocolate milkshake) versus cues signaling the impending delivery of a tasteless control solution. The second test looked at brain activity during the actual intake of the chocolate milkshake versus the tasteless solution.
Both lean and obese participants with higher food addiction scores showed different brain activity patterns than those with lower food addiction scores. In response to the anticipated receipt of food, participants with higher food addiction scores showed greater activity in parts of the brain responsible for cravings and the motivation to eat, but less activity in the regions responsible for inhibiting urges such as the desire to drink a milkshake.
Similar to drug addicts, individuals exhibiting signs of food addiction may struggle with increased cravings and stronger motivations to eat in response to food cues and may feel more out-of-control when eating highly palatable foods.
“The findings of this study support the theory that compulsive eating may be driven in part by an enhanced anticipation of food rewards and that addicted individuals are more likely to be physiologically, psychologically, and behaviorally reactive to triggers such as advertising,” says Ashley Gearhardt, clinical psychology doctoral student and lead author.
“The possibility that food-related cues may trigger pathological properties is of special concern in the current food environment where highly palatable foods are constantly available and heavily marketed.”
The authors assert that efforts to change the current food environment may be critical to successful weight loss and prevention efforts since food cues may take on motivational properties similar to drug cues. The current emphasis on personal responsibility as the reason for increasing obesity rates may have minimal effectiveness as palatable food consumption may be accompanied with a loss-of-control for individuals exhibiting signs of food addiction.
More news from Yale: http://opac.yale.edu
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2 Comments
Maureen martin
Wendilou
Maureen, you are on to something here, but nowadays we are inundated with these images everywhere–not just on TV. I gave that up a couple years ago, and I’m still a food addict. Trouble is, I have to drive past fast food places, I have to interact with people who talk about food, and I have to eat with others who are eating the stuff. I think, in theory, though, that if I could isolate myself from all of that…maybe moving to a third world country?….then it might work. I often wish that unhealthy food was banned, but then that wouldn’t be fair to the non-addicts. Good food for thought, though. So to speak. ;)
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It seems there may be some very primitive responses at work here. Famine has existed for most of mankind’s history: so it would seem natural for survival at times to gorge on food whenever it is available. The so called ‘trigger’ would be seeing or smelling food. If one is on the run, as man has been through out most of history, then selective gorging would be the most practical. It would follow that the consumption of fat and any high calorie content food and especially salt (much sweating would be going on with all the daily energy use) would travel best, while greens and roots along the way would be grazed on and provide vitamins and minerals.
We can thank those clever corporate geniuses to figure how to manipulate us with this natural drive. The native survival response has been used to stimulate product consumption through advertised imagery and commercial smells….think fast food smells (pizza, barbeque, grilled, coffee, baked sugary stuff—damn I”m getting hungry) so that after a while even the thought of these foods creates an image and desire.
DESIRE – now there is the key! Stimulate desire and you’ve got your man. No matter the form in which it comes. “There is no quenching desire. That is its sin.” When we live particularly boring lives, often diminished by fear and ill health, we can go pretty mad over something that conjures desire. So it seems to follow that unplugging from that which commonly stimulates unhealthy desire until one reboots their hard drive would be more effective than diets. The fastest way to do that would be to turn off the real jones for most of us junkies. That would be the TV, Marge. Now imagine that–how much less pill popping, glop eating, couch hatching we all would do. We might even carve out a real life and be stimulated by our own lifestyle enough to move into a state of desire that craves the best for us. I plan on doing that,,,,right after my favorite program.