Food Addiction Has More Genetic Issues
Another one of these food addiction genetic issues, for example, is your personal brain biochemistry or the number of receptor sites in an individual’s brain, which can intersect with the environment and lead to a disease process. Clinicians and scientists researching addictions issues currently suspect that the presence or absence of dopamine receptor sites and the level of the neurotransmitter dopamine produced by the individual is a major causal factor in becoming a food addict.
If a genetic difference causes a change in the sensitivity of the dopamine receptors, or their number is decreased, the sensation of pleasure would be lower than a more normal individual thus laying a high-risk foundation for becoming a food addict. There are other neurotransmitters that are probably involved like serotonin in the hypothalamus, the enkephalins (opoid peptides) in the ventral tegmental area of the brain and the nucleus accumbens and GABA in the same regions.
If these neurotransmitters are “out of whack” then this can result in feeling anxious, angry, or in a craving for a substance like food or a behavior (like gambling) that can ease the negative emotions and thus you become a food addict or an addict of some sort. If someone has a deficiency of serotonin production this will result in depression and there are big time links between depression and substance abuse. There is no question that foods do affect neurotransmitters. If your neurotransmitters are impacted then you can find yourself moving into compulsive food seeking behaviors, which is a symptom of food addiction.