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Heroin Addiction and Related Clinical Problems: 2013, 15, 4 (pages: 45 - 48)

A controversial side of addiction: new insight in eating behavior

Piccinni A., Costanzo D., Vanelli F., Franceschini C., Cremone I., Conversano C., Veltri A., Dell'Osso L.

Summary: Some recent investigations about the obesity pathogenesis have suggested the design of a food addiction model for the overeating, whereby the habitual exposure to palatable and hyper-caloric foods would foster progressive alterations in appetitive and rewarding brain pathways.Dopamine and opioids have been indicated as crucial mediators of both food and drug abuse development, and the peculiar signs of dependence (tolerance, withdrawal, craving, etc.) have been described in several animal models of food addiction. The over-eating may soon be recognized as a psychopathological condition overlapping with substance abuse, obsessive-compulsive and impulse-control disorders. The food over-intake, however, appears to be a spectrum of different phenomena, including not only severe forms of food addiction, but also sub-clinical forms of addiction-like conditions as hedonic eating, emotional eating or specific food craving. Despite their contribution to overweight development, these conditions are not yet officially accepted in current diagnostic systems.Could the spectrum approach to eating addiction problem represent a valid neurobiological and psychopathological model for describing the links between over-eating, eating disorders and substance addiction disorders?