Food Addiction and Obesity Lerma-Cabrera Et Al
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Food Addiction and Obesity Lerma-Cabrera et al. Nutrition Journal (2016) 15:5 DOI 10.1186/s12937-016-0124-6 WEIVER sseccAnepO Food addiction as a new piece of the obesity framework Jose Manuel Lerma-Cabrera1, Francisca Carvajal1,2 and Patricia Lopez-Legarrea1* Keywords: Obesity; Food addiction; Neuropeptides; Palatable food; Binge eating Introduction. Obesity today New theories about obesity: obesity as food Obesity has become a major public health burden addiction worldwide due to the huge social and economic impact In recent years, there has been an increase in scientic derived from its related comorbidities [1]. Excessive evidence showing both neurobiological and behavioral body weight has been estimated to account for 16 % of relationships between drugs and food intake. Basic re- the global burden disease [2] and according to World search using animal and humans models has shown that Health Organization estimates, over 600 million adults certain foods, mainly highly palatable foods, have addict- are obese worldwide Obesity is described as a multi- ive properties. In addition, exposure to food and drugs etiological disorder and several factors have been of abuse have shown similar responses in the dopamin- shown to be involved in its onset and development [1]. ergic and opioid systems. These similarities between Despite the important progression in the study of obes- food and drugs have given rise to the hypothesis oood ity, prevalence rates continue to increase, suggesting addiction. that additional elements must be involved in the patho- genesis of this disease. Moreover, even if weight loss programs are eective, keeping the weight o continues Food intake and brain reward circuits to be an almost insurmountable challenge [3]. In this The dopaminergic system is involved in a large number context, new theories are arising regarding food intake. of behaviors including reward processing and motivated Understanding obesity as a food addiction is a novel ap- behavior. Thus, all drugs of abuse incre ase the extracel- proach that has garnered considerable attention. Some lular concentration of dopamine (DA) in the striatum studies have shown an association between mood and and associated mesolimbic regions [7]. Di Chiara’s group the overall dietary pattern including specic nutrients has extensively showed that addictive drugs (e.g. am- [4]. Recent research also shows that palatable and high phetamine and cocaine) increase extracellular DA in the calorie food may have addictive potential. Subjects nucleus accumbens (NAc), a primary site for reinforced chronically eat some foods in amounts larger than behaviors [7]. Likewise, microdialysis has shown that ex- needed for staying healthy, which shows a loss of con- posure to rewarding food stimulates dopaminergic trans- trol in food behaviour [5]. Additionally, a 40 % preva- mission in the NAc [8]. lence oood addiction has been shown in obese Furthermore, neuroimaging studies show that our individuals seeking bariatric surgery [6]. All these traces brain response is similar in the presence oood and indicate that there may be a potential relationship be- drug abuse: increased cell activation in the NAc, the tween behaviour and weight gain. brain’s pleasure center [9–11]. Neuroimaging studies in humans have also shown similarities between obesity and addiction. For example, both obesity and addiction are associated with fewer D2 dopamine receptors in the brain [12, 13], suggesting that they are less sensitive to * Correspondence:[email protected] reward stimuli and more vulnerable to food or drug in- 1Centro de Investigacion Biomedica, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Autonoma de Chile, Santiago, Chile take. Thus, for example, individuals with the largest Full list of author information is available at the end of the article body mass index (BMI) had the lowest D2 values [13]. © 2016 Lerma-Cabrera et al.Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, providealink to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Lerma-Cabrera et al. Nutrition Journal (2016) 15:5 Page2of 5 Specically, this reduction in striatal D2 density corre- evidence suggests that mesolimbic dopamine pathways lates with reduced metabolism in cerebral areas (pre- could mediate the eect oeptin on food intake. frontal and orbitofrontal cortex) that exert inhibitory Therefore, theories of “food addiction” indicate that control over consumption [12]. Thus, obese subjects certain highly processed foods can have a high addictive show greater activation of reward and attention regions potential and may be responsible for some cases of obes- than normal weight subjects do in response to palatable ity and eating disorders [29, 30]. Recently, it have been food images versus control images [14, 15]. This obser- shown that subjects showing a compulsive overeating vation suggests that a decit in reward processing is an consume higher amounts of some macronutrients (fats important risk factor for the impulsive and compulsive and proteins) compared with non-food-addicted subjects behaviors showed by obese individuals. Taken together, [31, 32]. It is well established that hyperphagia induced these data could explain why in obesity and drug addic- by consumption oat enriched food and rened sugars tion the consummatory behaviors persist despite nega- is inuenced by mesolimbic and nigrostriatal dopamin- tive social, health and nancial consequences. All these ergic inputs. For example, consumption of highly palatable neurobiological data suggest that obesity and drug addic- food, especially sugar, entails the release of endogenous tion may share similar neuroadaptive responses in brain opioids in the NAc [33, 34] and activates the dopamin- reward circuits or action mechanisms. ergic reward system [35]. In addition, the rats exposed to intermittent access to sugar solution show some compo- The role of nutrition neuropeptides in addiction nents of addiction such as escalation of daily sugar intakes, The idea that neuropeptides involved in metabolic regu- withdrawal signs, craving andcross-sensitization to am- lation are also involved in modulating the neurobio- phetamine and alcohol [36]. These data suggest that logical responses to drugs of abuse has received a great certain foods are potentially rewarding and can trigger deal of attention in recent literature [16, 17]. Several addictive-like behaviors in laboratory animals and studies have shown that exposure to drugs of abuse sig- humans. nicantly alters the functionality of numerous neuropep- tides systems. On the other hand, compounds that target How to evaluate food addiction these neuropeptides systems play an important role in As mentioned before, obesity is a heterogeneous disease modulating the neurobiological responses to drugs of inuenced by mult iple factors. This review has shown abuse. For example, the melanocortins (MC) and orexins how an addictive process may play a role in binge eating system, which plays an important role in food intake, is and obesity. Thus, food addiction could be a factor con- also involved in drug use. Moreover, the brain expression tributing to overeating and then to obesity. However, for of these neuropeptides is altered after drug binge-like con- the scientic community the concept oood addiction is sumption [18–20] or palatable substances (caloric and still a controversial topic [5, 37, 38]. One of the arguments non-caloric) [21]. Central administration of Agouti-related to question the validity oood addiction hypothesis is that peptide, an MC antagonist, a ctivates midbrain dopamine although neurobiological studies have identied shared neurons and induces consumption oat enriched foods brain mechanisms oood and drugs, there are substantial [22]. Taken together, this data could explain why some dierences too [37]. Also, the pattern of brain activation kinds oood are so often overconsumed. of obese individuals and binge-eaters compared with con- Regulatory mechanisms for food intake can be trols is inconsistent [38]. Finally, other critical remarks homeostatic –biological need– but also hedonic [23]. argue that most of the studies that support the existence This idea is supported by the fact that people continue oood addiction are restricted to animal models [5]. Bear- eating even when energy requirements have been met. ing in mind this criticism, future research is required to However, it is noteworthy that these systems (hedonic more extensively study the validity oood addiction in versus homeostatic) are not mutually exclusive, but will humans. Therefore, to evaluate this hypothesis of“food have multiple interconnections [24].Homeostatic regu- addiction” and its contribution to eating disorders it be- lators of hunger and satiety, such as ghrelin, leptin and comes necessary to have valid and reliable instruments to insuli n, could mediate between the homeostatic and he- operationalize food addictive behaviors. donic mechanisms oood intake inuencing the dopa- A tool to identify individuals showing symptoms of“de- minergic system [25, 26]. Leptin is perhaps