functional medicine and nutritional genomics - American Association ...
functional medicine and nutritional genomics - American Association ...
functional medicine and nutritional genomics - American Association ...
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AAPI’S NUTRITION GUIDE TO OPTIMAL HEALTH: USING PRINCIPLES OF FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE AND NUTRITIONAL GENOMICS<br />
7<br />
Highly Palatable<br />
Foods : The Brain<br />
Reward Pathways<br />
<strong>and</strong> Connections to<br />
Overeating<br />
Micheline Vargas,<br />
DrPH, CNS,<br />
RCEP, CSCS<br />
For decades we have been taught that the key to<br />
losing weight is a matter of energy balance; eat<br />
less <strong>and</strong> exercise more. Yet more <strong>and</strong> more<br />
people continue to gain weight. In fact, in the<br />
United States two thirds of adults are overweight<br />
<strong>and</strong> more than 72 million of them are obese. i,ii<br />
The global picture of overweight <strong>and</strong> obesity is<br />
sobering, <strong>and</strong> the number of overweight people<br />
now surpasses the number of undernourished by<br />
several hundred million. iii In 2005, over 20<br />
million children under five years of age were<br />
overweight, <strong>and</strong> the World Health Organization has<br />
predicted that by 2015, approximately 2.3 billion<br />
adults will be overweight <strong>and</strong> over 700 million will<br />
be obese. iv<br />
Obesity rates have climbed in unison with the<br />
availability of inexpensive highly palatable foods,<br />
i.e., processed foods rich in fat, salt, <strong>and</strong> refined<br />
sugars. v Eating behaviors characterized by food<br />
58<br />
cravings <strong>and</strong> binging have increased concomitantly<br />
with the increased exposure to these highly<br />
palatable foods.<br />
Research in both animal models <strong>and</strong> human<br />
imaging studies shows that high calorie, highly<br />
palatable foods are directly associated with<br />
addiction <strong>and</strong> loss of control. vi,vii<br />
Emerging science has revealed that excessive food<br />
consumption involves the brain’s pleasure centers.<br />
Neuroimaging studies have shown that food, like<br />
substances of abuse, leads to increased dopamine<br />
release in the pleasure center of the brain.<br />
Positron emission tomographic (PET) imaging<br />
studies have shown that obese individuals, like<br />
drug abusers, have lower levels of dopamine D2<br />
receptors. vii<br />
Lower dopamine D2 receptors make the<br />
obese individual less sensitive to reward stimuli.<br />
This, in turn, may make the obese individual more<br />
2012