In upcoming posts, I plan to pursue two main themes. The first is a more comprehensive exploration of what determines eating behavior in humans, the neurobiology behind it, and the real world implications of this research. The reward and palatability value of food are major factors, but there are others, and I've spent enough time focusing on them for the time being. Also, the discussions revolving around food reward seem to be devolving into something that resembles team sports, and I've had my fill.
The second topic I'm going to touch on is human evolutionary history, including amazing recent insights from the field of human genetics. These findings have implications for the nutrition and health of modern humans.
I look forward to exploring these topics, and others, with all of you in the coming months.
Recent Media Appearances
Men's Health interviewed and quoted me in an article titled "Reprogram Your Metabolism", written by Lou Schuler. Part of the article was related to the food reward concept. I'm glad to see the idea gradually reaching the mainstream.
Boing Boing recently covered an article by Dr. Hisham Ziauddeen and colleagues in Nature Reviews Neuroscience that questioned the idea that common obesity represents food addiction-- an idea that I often encounter in my reading. Maggie Koerth-Baker asked me if I wanted to respond. I sent her a response explaining that I agree with the authors' conclusions and I also doubt obesity is food addiction per se, as I have explained in the past, although a subset of obese people can be addicted to food. I explained that the conclusions of the paper are consistent with the idea that food reward influences fat mass. You can find my explanation here.
Boing Boing recently covered an article by Dr. Hisham Ziauddeen and colleagues in Nature Reviews Neuroscience that questioned the idea that common obesity represents food addiction-- an idea that I often encounter in my reading. Maggie Koerth-Baker asked me if I wanted to respond. I sent her a response explaining that I agree with the authors' conclusions and I also doubt obesity is food addiction per se, as I have explained in the past, although a subset of obese people can be addicted to food. I explained that the conclusions of the paper are consistent with the idea that food reward influences fat mass. You can find my explanation here.
Food Reward: Approaching a Scientific Consensus
Review papers provide a bird's-eye view of a field from the perspective of experts. Recent review papers show that many obesity researchers are converging on a model for the development of obesity that includes excessive food reward*, in addition to other factors such as physical inactivity, behavioral traits, and alterations in the function of the hypothalamus (a key brain region for the regulation of body fatness). Take for example the four new review papers I posted recently by obesity and reward researchers:
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