I need more aah!

I was just chatting with a friend about weight loss, she had a baby a year ago and only has 5 lbs left to lose of her ‘baby fat’. We were talking about how some people struggle so badly with their weight while others can eat all day long and never worry… and she forwarded me to this article which basically claims that people who struggle with weight and food addictions are lacking the chemical receptors for dopamine.

From the article:

“Dopamine is the chemical that makes you say aah,” says Gene-Jack Wang, MD, clinical head of positron emission tomography imaging at Brookhaven and leader of a series of studies investigating the brain chemistry of chronic overeaters. “It gets us to go over and grab something that will make us feel good.” … If overeaters or drug addicts are short on receptors for the aah chemical, they might not respond as readily to social interaction, art, sex, and other pleasures that ought to make them feel good. And that could be the reason they’re driven to consume things that prompt dopamine’s release — like illicit drugs (the most potent activator) or foods high in fat, sugar, and possibly salt. “If you have someone who is not responsive to natural reinforcers, that person may be more vulnerable to taking drugs,” Volkow says. “If you get stimulated only by food, guess what happens? You can easily fall into patterns of compulsive eating.”

All in all it’s a pretty interesting article and I think they may be on to something…

Personally, my weight issues don’t really have as much to do with how I eat as how little I move. Sure I have chocolate now and then and drink regular coke rather than diet coke, but overall I eat less than most thin people I know. I definately eat less than Xander, and he doesn’t gain weight at all! The difference is that he’s more active than I am… I have less intake than he does but he burns it off quicker.

There was a reason I was posting this, and it actually had nothing to do with weight issues… remember this part?

If overeaters or drug addicts are short on receptors for the aah chemical, they might not respond as readily to social interaction, art, sex, and other pleasures that ought to make them feel good.

For years I’ve felt like I wasn’t normal, like there was something wrong with me.. and now this article has made me understand that it’s not my fault! It’s my faulty dopamine receptors! Now I know why I hate museums!