Scientists have proved that the food can cause addiction in obese people – RIA Novosti

MOSCOW, September 1 – RIA Novosti . An international team of neuroscientists has found further evidence to support the view that eating food “includes” those chains of nerve cells in the brains of people suffering from obesity associated with drug dependence, as scientists have told the next meeting of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

“Today we are much debate about whether it is possible to call obesity a manifestation of” food addiction “, but unfortunately, very few people trying to carry out serious research aimed at establishing the truth in this matter. The obtained findings speak in favor of the pleasure center obese people respond in a similar way to a meal, the brain of drug addicts – Drug “- said Oren Contreras-Rodriguez (Oren Contreras-Rodrgiuez) from the University of Granada (Spain).

Contreras-Rodriguez and his colleagues They came to this conclusion by comparing the way the brain works have slender people and their peers suffering from obesity. To do this, researchers gathered a group of dozens of volunteers and asked them to take the test in magnetic resonance imaging.

When the participants in the experiment went inside the scanner, neuroscientists showed him a picture of a portion of which was depicted appetizing looking food, and other – neutral and non-food items. Comparing changes in the brain of obese and slim people, scientists hope to understand whether there is a difference in the response to the kind of food they have.

As it turned out, pictures of food causes a reaction in completely different areas of the nervous system – from slim People and “talk” between the centers of memory and conditioned reflexes, while volunteers with obesity intensified pleasure centers and assess the value of food. Something similar, as the scientists explain, occurs in the minds of addicts.

According to Contreras-Rodriguez, by the presence of such bonds and the abnormally high level of activity can be determined, predisposed a person or a child to be overweight, and encourage them to adhere to diet. In the future, the scientist hopes his team will find a way to ease the communication and the activity of these areas of the brain to reduce craving for food in overweight people.