How an Altered Pleasure Desire Results in Weight Gain

Two new studies presented at the annual meeting of Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB) are helping to clarify the rather insidious nature of food cravings that result in overeating and weight gain.  The desire for pleasure is normal.  Eating produces a feeling of pleasure so that you eat, and thus survive. 

Problems occur when there is too much of a good thing.  One study showed the higher the fat and sugar content of the diet, the higher the amount of pleasure-related opiods were released.  However, the extra eating changed opiod receptor gene expression in areas of your brain that regulate your appetite¹, leading to increased desire for larger amounts of found on a regular basis.  Essentially, this is part of the mechanism of “food addiction” wherein eating too much begets changes in the operation of your brain that reinforce continued overeating.

The drive to acquire food is based on dopamine, which once acquired results in pleasure-related reward (opiod release).  Women who have a gene-related setting for dopamine² that is too low will visualize eating more often and this results in increased likelihood that they will eat more and thus gain weight.  It is as if they need more food in order to prop up a low pleasure/drive setting.

Together these studies show that food cravings are associated with altered brain function and structure.  The changes in brain function help lock in the problem of overeating and consequent weight gain.  It should be understood that these are very powerful urges that relate to survival and they are now set up in a wrong condition and the condition is likely to worsen over time.

The moral of the story is not to go down this path.  Simply following the five rules of the Leptin Diet is often enough to bring these issues under control.  For more help, please read my Tips on Controlling Food Cravings.