Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior Workshop Summary (2015) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
4 Future Directions: Is the Addiction Model for Drugs and Alcohol Appropriate for Food?
4 Future Directions: Is the Addiction Model for Drugs and Alcohol Appropriate for Food?
Pages 67-84
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 67... ...
. Some participants argued that existing evidence suggests that at least some eating behaviors, namely binge eating, can be characterized as addictive, while others opined that the data in this regard are inconclusive (see Chapter 3)
|
From page 68... ...
Box 4-1 highlights key points made by speakers during this session. THE ADDICTION MODEL IS APPROPRIATE FOR USE WITH FOOD3 Echoing what several other participants had previously said or implied, Nicole Avena identified obesity as "one of the main reasons why we are all here today." Researchers have been trying for some time, she said, to understand how the concept of "food addiction" might play into the many factors contributing to the rising obesity epidemic.
|
From page 69... ...
Drugs of abuse activate those same pathways, according to Avena. Highly palatable foods, she said, activate brain reward systems beyond what is seen when healthy food is eaten (e.g., with rats, their rat chow)
|
From page 70... ...
apply when the substance in question is a highly palatable food instead of a drug. That is, instead of giving animals drugs, she and her research team give them delicious foods to eat.
|
From page 71... ...
provided M&Ms to rats that were either prone or resistant to binge eating, the catch being that the rats had to cross an electrified shock grid to get to the M&Ms. The researchers found that the rats prone to binge eating endured greater magnitudes of shock to obtain the treat relative to their binge-resistant counterparts.
|
From page 72... ...
Only when their cafeteria diet was reintroduced did these rats again show an increase in dopamine release. According to Avena, these results suggest that the cafeteria diet had changed the rats' brains in a way that was similar to what is seen in rats that overeat sugar and that caused the animals to react to healthy food differently from the way the rats maintained on a healthy diet reacted.
|
From page 73... ...
Avena suspects that addiction to palatable foods may be more like addiction to cigarettes than to drugs of abuse, and thereby produce the same type of milder and less pronounced loss of control that is associated with smoking. Finally, some critics argue that stigma may be conferred when a person is diagnosed as a "food addict." Again, this is a valid concern in Avena's opinion, but scientific data suggest it is unfounded.
|
From page 74... ...
: The food environment has changed dramatically with the influx of hyper palatable foods that are engineered in ways that appear to surpass the rewarding properties of traditional foods (e.g., vegetables, fruits, nuts) by increasing fat, sugar, salt, flavors and food additives to high levels (Table 1)
|
From page 75... ...
The argument is based on evidence such as that reported by Johnson and Kenny (2010) , who showed that rats exposed to a cafeteria diet of chocolate, pound cake, sugar frosting, and a variety of other energy-dense foods experienced increased body weight compared with rats fed a standard laboratory diet.
|
From page 76... ...
, have shown that rats exposed to addictive drugs experience a reduced brain stimulation reward similar to that experienced by the rats on a cafeteria diet in Johnson and Kenny's (2010) study.
|
From page 77... ...
Based on these animal studies and some parallel observations in humans, the case has been made that deficits in food reward mechanisms underlie human obesity and that individuals increase their consumption of palatable foods in an attempt to overcome that loss of food reward (Gearhardt et al., 2011b)
|
From page 78... ...
Food Addiction and Obesity Rogers echoed the remarks of other workshop participants that most people who are obese do not display addictive-like eating behavior. In a study of the relationship between weight status and food addiction as efined by the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS)
|
From page 79... ...
Questions spanned a range of topics. Intermittent Feeding in the Rat Model: Relevance to Human Eating Behavior In her presentation, Avena had discussed results of her research with animal models aimed at determining whether DSM-IV and DSM-5 criteria for substance use disorders apply when the substance of desire is a highly palatable food instead of a drug.
|
From page 80... ...
After just a few days of access to highly palatable foods, rats learn when to expect food. They become conditioned to the researchers walking into the room to give them Cheez Doodles or M&Ms.
|
From page 81... ...
Rogers views packaging as something that merely reminds people of the value of the food in terms of its energy density and taste. Sugars Versus Artificial Sweeteners: Dopamine Release and Overeating Avena was asked whether there is any evidence that her sugar model in rats is applicable to artificial sweeteners.
|
From page 82... ...
Many so-called healthy foods require more skill and equipment to prepare relative to many energy-dense foods. Rogers pointed to the replacement of french fries with apple slices in children's meals by McDonald's as a successful example of nudging eating behavior in a healthier direction.
|
From page 83... ...
But whether those pleasurable activities are addictive depends on how the reward systems are engaged; the extent to which they are engaged; and whether other concomitant features of addiction manifest, as has been shown with palatable foods. She said, "When we talk about addiction, we are talking about a multifaceted, multifeatured issue that we need to study from multiple angles." For Rogers, it is useful to think of the addiction risk posed by a substance.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.