Overeating can stem from chemicals in foods

Overeating can stem from chemicals in foods


If you’re prone to overeating, it’s not always about a lack of willpower. Chemicals in cooked and processed foods can lead to binge eating.

That’s what scientists at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging discovered recently after looking closely at the chemicals that make foods more appetizing and harder to resist.

Some of those compounds are known as advanced glycation [ɡly-kay-shun] end products, or AGEs [ages]. Hundreds or thousands of AGEs are created when food is baked, fried or grilled. They also find their way into many processed foods.

Think of how food smells and tastes as it browns during the cooking process. Those are AGEs at work. But for all their alluring taste factors, these same chemicals can also wreak havoc on the body. They can lead to inflammation, high blood pressure, kidney disease and other issues.

The scientists say research conducted in tiny nematode worms has immense implications for human dietary choices and the tendency to overeat certain foods. Besides decreasing longevity and causing disease, the AGE chemicals in cooked and prepared food also increased the worms’ appetite for more of the same.

The California researchers’ work is the first to identify the biochemical signaling pathways that drive overeating. That, the researchers said, is a crucial step toward understanding how the chemicals in food lead to binge eating.

So, knowing more about food’s effect on appetite is seen as a way to someday address overeating. Or, as the researchers elegantly put it: We are not controlling our food intake. Instead, it is the food that is attempting to control us.

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