Food Craving as Strong as Drug Craving

[Guest guest]

>

>

> Food Craving as Strong as Drug Craving

>

> Brain's Food Craving Same as Addicts' Drug Craving

>

> April 21, 2004 -- Normal people crave food the same way addicts crave drugs,

> a new study shows.

>

>

> Using sophisticated brain scans, researchers at Brookhaven National

> Laboratory find that just the sight and smell of food makes a hungry person's

brain

> look like the brain of an addict craving drugs.

>

>

>

> Earlier studies show that the brains of obese people -- like those of drug

> addicts -- are low on dopamine receptors. Dopamine is a brain chemical

> involved in feeling pleasure and reward. Having low numbers of receptors may

be a

> way to compensate for chronically high levels of dopamine triggered by

> overeating or addictions. It might also be that low levels of receptors are

what

> makes them more vulnerable to their addictive behaviors, say researchers.

>

>

>

> The new findings show that constant exposure to food advertising -- and food

> itself -- makes our craving worse. Obese people may find this craving

> unbearable.

>

>

>

> " These results could explain the deleterious effects of constant exposure to

> ... advertising, candy machines, food channels, and food displays in

> stores, " study researcher Gene-Jack Wang, MD, says in a news release.

>

>

>

> Wang suggests that by constantly keeping our brains in craving mode, these

> " food stimuli " make it very, very hard for us to resist eating more than we

> need. The findings appear in the April issue of NeuroImage.

>

>

>

> Food Craving Lights Up Brain

>

>

>

> Wang's team enrolled 12 healthy, normal-weight volunteers. The subjects

> didn't eat for 17 to 19 hours before the study.

>

>

>

> The researchers then tempted them with their favorite foods, warmed up to

> make it smell appetizing. Cruelly, they even swabbed the subjects' tongues

with

> tiny tastes of food.

>

>

>

> As one might expect, this torment made the subjects' brains light up on the

> brain scan -- particularly a region called the right orbitofrontal cortex.

> This part of the brain also becomes active in cocaine-craving addicts.

>

>

>

> " The high sensitivity of this brain region to food stimuli, coupled with the

> huge number and variety of these stimuli in the environment, likely

> contributes to the epidemic of obesity in this country, " Wang says.

>

>

>

>