I would like to thank my friends at the Eating Disorders Network of Central Maryland and Eating Disorders Hope for calling my attention to a new research which suggests that overconsumption of fatty, sugary foods leads to changes in brain receptors, increasing opioids in the area that controls food intake.

According to new animal research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine which is being presented as I write at the 2009 annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), such results “have implications for understanding bulimia and other binge eating disorders”.

The research team involved in the study report that either continuous eating or binge eating a high fat, high sugar diet alters opioid receptor levels in an area of the brain that controls food intake.

According to a press release about the study, “the new findings suggest that overconsumption of highly palatable foods maintains binge eatingby enhancing opioids in the brain, and that increased opioids could be a factor involved in binge eating disorders. These findings may help to understand the biological basis of eating disorders.”