Fats Stimulate Binge Eating

In the February 25 Issue:

Fats stimulate binge eating

Rat study suggests strategy for combating the munchies

By Rachel Ehrenberg

Web edition : Friday, July 8th, 2011

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Eating fatty foods may give you the munchies. A new study shows that when rats taste fat, it stimulates the same cellular buttons triggered by the active ingredient in marijuana, telling the body to keep on eating.

Uncovering the events that lead to this molecular “eat, eat” missive will make it easier to develop drugs that curb binge eating and other weight related-problems, says pharmacologist Daniele Piomelli, who led the new work.

Piomelli and his colleagues were interested in compounds known as endocannabinoids — the body’s version of the active ingredient in marijuana — and the role they play in overeating. Several kinds of endocannabinoids are released in the brain and body, but researchers are still discovering the nitty-gritty of where and when these compounds regulate mood and behavior.

So the researchers fed rats one of four liquid diets: fat (in the form of corn oil), protein, sugar or a nutrition shake combination of fat, protein and sugar. To ensure that the body’s digestive signals wouldn’t interfere with the experiments, a surgically implanted valve in the rats’ upper stomach drained the food once eaten. Then the team measured endocannabinoid activity in the brain and other tissues. Compared with rats eating sugar or protein alone, rats on the fat diet had a surge of endocannabinoid activity in their gut, the team reported online July 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Previous work has linked endocannabinoid activity to bingeing. When given a compound that blocked the cellular buttons that the endocannabinoids typically hit, the fat-eating rats immediately stopped eating.

“It was a very striking effect,” says Piomelli, of the University of California, Irvine and the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, Italy.

That a feedback loop in animals encourages bingeing on fats makes sense, says Angelo Izzo of the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, who was not involved in the work. From an evolutionary point of view, fats were once a valuable, rare commodity that played a pivotal role in survival.

The new research is exciting because it suggests blocking endocannabinoid activity in the gut might curb overeating, says Izzo. A drug designed to do just that turned out to also interfere with endocannabinoid activity in the brain, making some people anxious and irritable. But in the new work, the fat-triggered activity was localized to the gut. Piomelli’s team hopes to generate new drugs that wouldn’t enter the brain.

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Found in: Body & Brain and Molecules

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Comments 7

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This report is interesting, but most of us do not have valves to divert our food from our stomach away from our intestinal tract. I have read that our intestinal track acts like a brain. If so we have messed up communication to the one in our head, so any applicability to our use of fat in eating would not seem to be very valid ?

Joseph Schoeb

Jul. 9, 2011 at 6:58pm
This is a very nice article, but it should say something about how a drug that only acts only in the gut can trigger endless eating. The idea is not implausible, but we usually think of such behaviors as being controlled by the brain. At least, that is what I always assumed about "getting the munchies" after smoking marijuana.

Ralph Dratman

Jul. 9, 2011 at 6:58pm
Ralph Dratman,

The brain gets feedback from the gut all the time, both neural feedback and hormonal feedback. One or both of these feedback mechanisms are probably working with the endocannabinoid receptor.

Robert Woodman

Jul. 11, 2011 at 9:46am
It would be interesting to see what effect a more natural fat such as organic coconut oil or pure lard would have. I don't think corn oil is healthy and don't use it myself. I am a protein type and find that fat satisfies my appetite. I have lost about 100 pounds over the last ten years by following my Metabolic Type diet. I NEED the fat!

Florence leppert

Jul. 11, 2011 at 9:51am
Poor choice, using corn oil to represent fats--we definitely did not evolve eating corn oil. But perhaps the message to be gained from this study is that we should pay attention to what we use to satisfy our fat needs.

Virginia Jacobs

Jul. 13, 2011 at 10:05am
The brain gets feedback from the gut all the time, both neural feedback and hormonal feedback. One or both of these feedback mechanisms are probably working with the endocannabinoid receptor.

Katrina Jones

Jul. 13, 2011 at 10:05am
I disliked his theory. The munchies as you would call them comes from the brain and endorphines being released. I have a hard time believing that eating fat could ever trigger the brain into thinking that you are under a munchie attack. Fatty foods have been a diet of most folks for a very long part of history. I eat fat and again I feel very satisfied. Chicken skin is still my favorite. The meal never has the same affect on satisfaction without it.

Mikey

Jul. 14, 2011 at 9:55am

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