Cited by 211Regulation of Appetite and ObesityEating Disorders and BehaviorsNeurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 151 of the 152 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 167 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Role of addiction and stress neurobiology on food intake and obesity

Open access
Sinha, Rajita·2018·Biological Psychology

Abstract

The US remains at the forefront of a global obesity epidemic with a significant negative impact on public health. While it is well known that a balance between energy intake and expenditure is homeostatically regulated to control weight, growing evidence points to multifactorial social, neurobehavioral and metabolic determinants of food intake that influence obesity risk. This review presents factors such as the ubiquitous presence of rewarding foods in the environment and increased salience of such foods that stimulate brain reward motivation and stress circuits to influence eating behaviors. These rewarding foods via conditioned and reinforcing effects stimulate not only metabolic, but also stress hormones, that, in turn, hijack the brain emotional (limbic) and motivational (striatal) pathways, to promote food craving and excessive food intake. Furthermore, the impact of high levels of stress and trauma and altered metabolic environment (e.g. higher weight, altered insulin sensitivity) on prefrontal cortical self-control processes that regulate emotional, motivational and visceral homeostatic mechanisms of food intake and obesity risk are also discussed. A heuristic framework is presented in which the interactive dynamic effects of neurobehavioral adaptations in metabolic, motivation and stress neurobiology may further support food craving, excessive food intake and weight gain in a complex feed-forward manner. Implications of such adaptations in brain addictive-motivational and stress pathways and their effects on excessive food intake and weight gain are discussed to highlight key questions that requires future research attention in order to better understand and address the growing obesity epidemic.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

This narrative review proposes that highly palatable foods and food cues, via reward/motivation and stress neurobiology, promote food craving, excessive intake, and weight gain in a feed-forward manner. It integrates human and animal evidence on metabolic hormones, glucocorticoids, stress/trauma, and prefrontal self-control to frame obesity risk as overlapping with addiction neurobiology.

Key findings

  • More than 500 million people worldwide are classified as obese (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m²), and two-thirds of the US population is overweight or obese (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m²).
  • Highly palatable foods and related cues are conditioned/reinforcing and activate brain reward and motivation pathways; in a large community sample, higher food craving was associated with greater intake of these foods, and higher BMI was associated with greater food craving. Fast foods such as potato chips, processed meats, and sugar-sweetened beverages predicted long-term weight gain in large prospective US cohorts.
  • Metabolic and stress signals interact with reward circuits: insulin resistance/high insulin may promote rather than suppress food craving and intake and increase activation in dopamine-rich regions (VTA, nucleus accumbens, dorsal striatum); higher leptin predicted blunted VmPFC/rACC activation to high-fat food images and glucose/fructose in adolescents; higher ghrelin was associated with greater food cravings; and higher chronic stress, insulin, and cortisol responses predicted greater weight gain at 6-month follow-up.
  • Stress, trauma, and adversity are positively associated with adiposity, BMI, and weight gain, with stronger associations among overweight and binge-eating individuals; stress can increase fast food, snacks, calorie-dense highly palatable foods, and binge eating, and overweight/obese individuals may be more vulnerable to stress-driven eating.

Methods

  • Narrative review, not a primary empirical study; it synthesizes human and animal research on addiction, stress neurobiology, metabolic hormones, and food intake.
  • No new sample or dataset is analyzed; the paper cites prior studies, including the author’s own cross-sectional, longitudinal, and neuroimaging work.
  • Main analysis is conceptual integration, culminating in a heuristic feed-forward framework (Fig. 1) modified from Sinha & Jastreboff (2013).

Limitations

  • The paper states that the link between glucocorticoids, ghrelin, insulin, and leptin on food motivation and intake in humans is not clear; the influence of specific food types on peripheral and central glucocorticoids and food craving/intake is not known; whether adaptations differ for sweets, fats, and carbohydrates versus proteins is unclear; and the role of additives/preservatives is not well studied.
  • The paper states that longitudinal studies measuring metabolic and stress hormone adaptations and their impact on food intake and weight gain in community samples are needed, as are experimental studies assessing neural and biobehavioral changes relating to food cues, stress, and food intake.
  • Evident from the text: as a narrative review, it does not use a systematic search or meta-analytic synthesis, and many cited findings come from animal models, cross-sectional studies, or observational cohorts; the proposed heuristic framework is presented rather than empirically tested in the paper.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2017.05.001

Cites

151 of 151 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

81 Not checked yet · 22 Own interpretation · 3 No basis given

Verify all 167 references — free account

Show all 48 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 50
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 10
58 of 58
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Highly palatable foods are more liked, preferred, and found rewarding in taste.

    “Highly palatable (HP) foods are more liked, preferred and found to be rewarding in taste”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Highly palatable foods are ubiquitous in the current obesogenic environment.

    “These foods are ubiquitous in our current obesogenic environment”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Genetic and other social and biological variables alone do not explain pandemic levels of obesity.

    “but these alone do not explain the pandemic levels of obesity”
3 of 3

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Citations

Cites

Show all 152 references

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Heinrichs, 2005, Behavioral consequences of altered corticotropin-relaeasing factor activation in brian; a functionalist view of affective neuroscience, Vol. 15, 155
  2. Klein, 1996, Gender differences in eating after exposure to noise stressor, Annals of Behavioural Medicine, 18, S103

Cited by

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Metadata

Authors
Sinha, R.
Affiliations
Yale University (US)
Corresponding author
Sinha, Rajita
Venue
Biological Psychology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2018-01
Volume
131
Pages
5-13
ISSN
0301-0511 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2610477874
Cited by
211
References
152
Citations by year
2026: 18 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 42 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 35 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 4
FWCI
8.70
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Biological Psychology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases/National Institutes of Health (R01-DK099039)
  • National Institutes of Health Roadmap for Medical Research Common Fund (UL1-DE019586, UL1-RR024139)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Regulation of Appetite and Obesity
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
Keywords
obesity, dietary intake, food addiction, food reward, food cravings, stress hormones, insulin resistance, trauma, energy homeostasis, obesity epidemic
MeSH terms
Food Addiction, Eating, Emotions, Feeding Behavior, Humans, Motivation, Obesity, Reward, Stress, Psychological, Weight Gain, Craving

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