Originally published November 8 2005
French scientists find conditions that lead to binge eating
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
M. Flavia Barbano, PhD, and Martine Cador, PhD, conducted research at the University of Bordeaux 2 in France on the factors that lead to overeating, and they found that stress and food deprivation, coupled with exposure to delicious food, in most cases, lead to binge eating.
The findings also implicate the brain's opioid, or reward, system in regulating overeating, especially when the food is extra-tempting -- and not only in under-fed animals.
A study by M. Flavia Barbano, PhD, and Martine Cador, PhD, at the University of Bordeaux 2 in France, separated the distinct roles in consumption played by food deprivation and the "yum" factor, establishing that the interplay between internal and external factors regulates food intake, at least in mammals.
For motivation, the researchers measured how fast 16 rats -- who either had eaten freely or been put on a diet -- ran down an alley to a bowl of either chow or Choc and Crisp, a German-brand cereal.
As for actual intake, when presented with the Choc and Crisp, the food-sated group ate almost as much as the food-deprived group.
In another key study, neuroscience psychologist Mary Boggiano, PhD, and her colleagues at the University of Alabama at Birmingham focused on the regulatory role of the brain's opioid system.
Yet external substances such as heroin and morphine mimic endorphins by binding to the same receptors in the brain, produce a sense of reward (among other functions).
The researchers compared how binge-eating rats versus non-binge eating rats responded to drugs that either turn on opioid receptors (butorphanol, which treats pain) or block them (naloxone, which treats heroin addiction).
From the rats' responses to these drugs, Boggiano and her colleagues inferred how stress and dieting change the brain's opioid control of eating.
Either caloric restriction or stress alone were not enough to produce changes in food intake, but stressed and underfed rats ate twice the normal amount of Oreo� cookies, which rats find rewarding.
In other words, animals subjected to both stressors became binge eaters, confirming how strongly these outside factors interact to change eating behavior.
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