NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Obese people may eat more because the parts of their brain associated with sensations in the mouth, tongue and lips may react more strongly than those in lean people, according to the results of a preliminary study.

"This enhanced activity...could cause obese people to be more sensitive to the rewarding processes of food...and could be one of the reasons why they overeat," said lead investigator Dr. Gene-Jack Wang of Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, during an interview with Reuters Health.

The findings, which were released early by Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), are to be published in the July 2nd issue of the journal NeuroReport, according to a press release from the research facility.

To investigate, the team looked brain scans showing what parts of the brain were activated when 10 "severely obese" men and women skipped two meals and compared the results with brain scans of 20 lean men and women who also hadn't eaten.

All of the study participants were instructed not to eat after their normal dinnertime the day before the brain scan. Upon arrival to the lab the next afternoon, the men and women, with their stomachs growling for food, were injected with a form of glucose, the brain's chief form of fuel, which could be seen during a type of brain scan called positron emission tomography.

"Overall, the brain activity did not differ significantly between the two groups," Wang told Reuters Health. But when the researchers looked more closely at regional differences, they noticed "that the obese people had higher...activity in an area of the brain...related to the sensory of the mouth, tongue and lips," Wang said.

The findings may one day help researchers create a drug that could dull senses associated with over-eating, Wang noted.

SOURCE: NeuroReport 2002 July 2.

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