The tendency to want food may be 'hard-wired' into the brain of overweight people, says a new study that supports the theory that brain mechanisms underlying obesity may be similar to those in substance addiction. The researchers found that food craving activates different brain networks between obese and normal weight patients. "There is an ongoing controversy over whether obesity can be called a 'food addiction', but in fact there is very little research which shows whether or not this might be true," said lead researcher Oren Contreras-Rodriguez.
"The findings in our study support the idea that the reward processing following food stimuli in obesity is associated with neural changes similar to those found in substance addiction," Contreras-Rodriguez noted. The study looked for the functional connectivity differences in brain reward systems of normal-weight and obese individuals. The…
