Chocolate can cause unbridled eating craving

Chocolate consumption can unfold unimaginable addictive potential

21/09/2012

The sight of chocolate is enough to cause the release of an opium-like substance in the brain. This triggers at least at rates unbridled eating greed. According to researchers, it is very likely that people are also driven by the substance to overeating and addictive behavior.

Chocolate has an unexpected addictive potential
Chocolate not only tastes good but also has an unexpected addictive potential. Researchers report in the journal "Current Biology" why waiving the treat is so difficult. Already during the sight of chocolate an opium-like substance, the so-called enkephalin, is released in the brain. In rats, the neuropeptide causes unrestrained feeding attacks. As the scientists report it solves in the brain commands like „Eat now“ or „Eat more of it“ out. It is very likely that enkephalin also leads to unrestrained eating cravings in humans.

The rats were given schokodrops for the study. „These began to eat at once, and at the same time encephalin levels in their brain increased to 150 percent of normal, "the researchers report, adding that the levels did not recede until 40 minutes after the animals stopped eating, while other signal substances remained unchanged. To measure the concentration of substances, a microchip was implanted into the so-called neostriatum in the brain of the rat, which is normally associated with the control of movement.

Enkephalin causes unrestrained binge eating
In further experiments, the scientists injected small amounts of enkephalin into the brains of the rats. As a result, the animals ate twice the amount of chocolate, which is equivalent to about 3.6 kilograms of chocolate to a man. The Enkephalin have not led to the fact that the rats have tasted better the treat, the researchers report. Typical, unconscious Wohlfühlsignale showed the animals both with and without the additional neuropeptide alike.

„Alexandra DiFeliceantonio, University of Michigan Ann Arbor explains, "Enkephalin is very likely to drive on overeating and addictive behaviors not only in rats, but also in humans." Even in overweight people, brain cells in the dorsal neostriatum are active when they look at food Similarly, drug addicts watch others drug use. „The brain seems to have more options for us to overconsumption than previously thought, "says DiFeliceantonio.

Sweets are addictive
That US-American scientists found out by the end of 2010 that addictions are addictive. Paul Johnson and Paul Kenny of the Scripps Research Institute have fed normal and overweight rats with treats as part of their investigation. At the same time, they put on the animals an unpleasant stimulus. The researchers wanted to find out how much tasty food to eat in obese and normal-weight rats, when they have to endure something unpleasant at the same time. Johnson and Kenny found that certain receptors in the brain of overweight obese rats were less active, causing the rodents to eat more. The other rats relinquished the sweets because of the unpleasant stimuli.

The obsessive-eating overweight animals exhibited less activity of the dopamine D2 receptors, which act as a receiving unit for signals through the neurotransmitter dopamine and belong to the reward system of the brain. The response of the D2 receptors to the consumption of sweets is very similar to the processes in the brain of drug addicts, the researchers wrote. Their study proves that over-consumption of sweets is in some ways addictive over time. (Ag)

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Picture: S. Hainz