ScienceDaily (July 27, 2009) — Overconsumption of fatty, sugary foods leads to changes in brain receptors, according to new animal research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  The new research results are being presented at the 2009 annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB). The results have implications for understanding bulimia and other binge eating disorders.

Dr. Bello and colleagues report that either continuous eating or binge eating a high fat, high sugar diet alters opioid receptor levels in an area of the brain that controls food intake. Opioids are a family of chemicals with actions similar to those of morphine; however, opioids exist naturally in the brain and have been linked to feelings of pleasure and euphoria. “These results are interesting because we saw changes in opioid receptor gene expression in a brain area that controls how much we eat during a meal”, said Bello.

The new findings suggest that overconsumption of highly palatable foods maintains bingeing by enhancing opioids in the brain, and that increased opioids could be a factor involved in binge eating disorders. These findings may help to understand the biological basis of eating disorders.

This research was supported by NIH DK19302 and DK078484.

The lead author was Nicholas Bello, Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.

  Co-authors were F. CASSEUS, M.T. CHUANG, B.A. MITCHELL, Z.W. PATINKIN, P. SINGH, T.H. MORAN. Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, Dept. Psychiatry and Behavioral Sci., Baltimore, MD, USA

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

enlarge

Overconsumption of fatty, sugary foods leads to changes in brain receptors, researchers find. (Credit: iStockphoto/Dean Turner)

Related Stories

Rats With Part of Brain Deactivated Move Toward Food But Do Not Eat (Sep. 9, 2009) — Using an animal model of binge eating, researchers discovered that deactivating the basolateral amygdala, a brain region involved in regulating emotion, specifically blocked consumption of a fatty ...  > read more

'Junk Food' Moms Have 'Junk Food' Babies (Mar. 24, 2011) — Pregnant mothers who eat high sugar and high fat diets have babies who are likely to become junk food junkies themselves. According to the report, which used rats, this happens because the high fat ...  > read more

Study May Lead To New Therapies For Binge Eating Disorder (Apr. 19, 2007) — Psychologists have developed an animal model for the binge eating disorder, which affects an estimated one in 20 ...  > read more

Stress of Freshman Year Can Trigger Eating Disorders for Some Young People (Aug. 24, 2010) — While the start of college is a positive, momentous event for many young people, it also can be an episode that pushes some into a dangerous battle with eating disorders, says a psychologist who ...  > read more

Search ScienceDaily