The brand new discovery that leptin is vital to the production of dopamine, directly linking leptin to pleasure, desire, drive, addiction, and human behavior, will begin to force researchers to look at obesity in another light.  For example, two new studies link obesity to obsessive video game playing by men in their mid 30s and to indebtedness.  Is obesity actually causing these problems?

In one study a comparison was done amongst adults that play video games compared to those that don’t.  Women game players were more likely to be depressed and have other health problems.  Male game players were more likely to be overweight.  Some might say that sitting in front of a video game is sedentary and contributes to overall lack of activity (a traditional explanation). 

Another way to view this would be that the surge of pleasure from scoring or winning in a video game causes a burst of dopamine and pleasure, something an overweight person is lacking due to low dopamine from leptin resistance.  In other words, playing video games helps “correct” the brain imbalance that is caused by obesity.  Said another way – being overweight is in fact causing the person to obsess with video games.  For adult women, the same video game surge of dopamine helps improve their mood.

Another study links obesity to indebtedness.  Traditional explanations would be that a person with less money doesn’t have enough education to know what a good diet is or have the money to afford it.  Or possibly, because they are overweight they are paid less or more likely to lose their job. 

Another way to view this is that a person who is overweight will have low dopamine and will be looking for a “reward fix” or “acquisition fix” that provides a dopamine boost.  Such a person could easily develop a powerful subconscious drive to have things in order to feel better, which would include buying things on credit they could not afford, resulting in indebtedness.

In these examples I don’t think it is an either or situation, but rather a combination.  My point is that it is now very important to also look at being overweight as a situation that induces a brain imbalance in dopamine and can very easily be the CAUSE of behavior that is not good for someone.  This is the new world of leptin.

Posted by Mitchell at 09:32 PM.

(0) Comments • Permalink