Division of Global Tobacco, Alcohol, Obesity & Health Research, University of Florida, Department of Psychiatry and McKnight Brain Institute, PO Box 100256, Gainesville, FL 32610-0256, USA.
J Psychoactive Drugs. 2010 Jun;42(2):133-45. doi: 10.1080/02791072.2010.10400686.
Obesity has become a major health problem and epidemic. However, much of the current debate has been fractious and etiologies of obesity have been attributed to eating behavior or fast food, personality issues, depression, addiction, or genetics. One of the interesting new hypotheses for epidemic obesity is food addiction, which is associated with both substance-related disorder and eating disorder. Accumulating evidences have shown that there are many shared neural and hormonal pathways as well as distinct differences that may help researchers find why certain individuals overeat and become obese. Functional neuroimaging studies have further revealed that good or great smelling, looking, tasting, and reinforcing food has characteristics similar to that of drugs of abuse. Many of the brain changes reported for hedonic eating and obesity are also seen in various forms of addictions. Most importantly, overeating and obesity may have an acquired drive like drug addiction with respect to motivation and incentive; craving, wanting, and liking occur after early and repeated exposures to stimuli. The acquired drive for great food and relative weakness of the satiety signal would cause an imbalance between the drive and hunger/reward centers in the brain and their regulation.
肥胖已成为一个主要的健康问题和流行病。然而，目前的许多争论都很激烈，肥胖的病因被归因于饮食行为或快餐、个性问题、抑郁、成瘾或遗传。肥胖的一个有趣的新假设是食物成瘾，它与物质相关障碍和饮食障碍都有关。越来越多的证据表明，存在许多共同的神经和激素途径以及明显的差异，这可能有助于研究人员了解为什么某些人会过度进食并变得肥胖。功能神经影像学研究进一步表明，好吃、好看、好吃、有强化作用的食物具有类似于滥用药物的特征。在各种形式的成瘾中也可以看到与享乐性进食和肥胖相关的许多大脑变化。最重要的是，与吸毒成瘾一样，暴饮暴食和肥胖可能具有后天的驱动力，在动机和激励方面，在早期和反复接触刺激后，会产生渴望、想要和喜欢。对美味食物的后天驱动力和饱腹感信号的相对减弱会导致大脑中驱动和饥饿/奖励中心及其调节之间的失衡。
