New Evidence For Food Addiction

Image (c) Charles Thompson

An exciting new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has demonstrated a new level of the addictive process in food addiction.

The study, which induced palatable food addiction in rats, showed that these unfortunate creatures not only experienced pleasurable reward processes from overeating, but also actually experienced physiological withdrawal when the palatable food became inaccessible.

For years, the question of whether food addiction is a genuine addiction has been controversial, but this puts a whole new perspective on the problem on compulsive overeating. We now know that people continue overeating to avoid the unpleasant withdrawal symptoms as much as they do to seek the pleasure of indulgence.