New York, April 05: While food and narcotics craving seems to have nothing in common, new findings suggest that similar brain mechanisms are involved in both of the addictions.
A brain study of about 40 women showed researchers at Yale University that showing a chocolate milkshake photo activated similar brain regions in those participants with highly addictive eating behavior that usually evoked in alcohol or narcotic addicts.
Using functional magnetic resonant imaging (fMRI), a brain imaging procedure, the researchers examined brain activity when the subjects were shown, and then drank, a chocolate milkshake.
Then, the findings were compared with the subjects’ brain’s response to the anticipation and consumption of a tasteless solution.
According to the findings published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, the brains of high food addicts exhibited neural activity similar to that seen in drug addicts, with greater activity in brain regions responsible for cravings and less activity in the regions that curb urges.
Moreover, the study showed that the brain activity indicative of addiction was found in both lean and obese subjects who scored high in the test for food addiction.
“We found that the high food addiction group showed low inhibition: They have less control in their consumption, and that’s something we’ve seen also in addicts,” said the lead researcher Ashley N. Gearhardt.
The study suggests that certain triggers, such as advertisements for food, have not just a psychological, but a physiological, effect on certain people, she added.
Although the new findings highlight the physiological nature of food addiction, it’s still unknown whether people are born with a predilection for food addiction or develop it through their behavior.
——–Agencies