
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 23, 1995                   TAG: 9506260030
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BINGE CONTROL

WE ARE awaiting word that - contrary to the conventional wisdom that chocolate is fattening, clogs veins and stimulates the appetite - it is really good for you, lowers blood pressure and encourages hair to grow in places where this is actually desirable.

We are, as we said, waiting.

Nothing so far.

Instead, the latest word is that chocolate and other sweet, fatty foods may trigger a binge-eating addiction. This is news we didn't really want to hear, but researchers have thrown in a sweetener. They may have found a drug that can help binge-eaters break their compulsion.

Scientists at the University of Michigan School of Public Health asked two groups of women, one whose members were obese and the other whose members were of normal weight, to rate their preferences for foods in four broad categories, one of which was food high in sugar and fat, such as chocolate candy. Some members of each group were either bulimic or binge-eaters.

After receiving a drug that blocks the action of naturally produced opiates in the brain, the binge-eaters - both fat and thin - expressed less desire for sweet and fatty foods. Further, when given the opportunity to eat as much as they wanted of their favorite foods from each category, the obese binge-eaters ate less of the sweet, fatty foods and fewer calories overall. Binge-eaters of normal weight simply made fewer sweet, fatty choices. And non-binge-eaters, whether fat or thin, did not change their eating patterns.

Interesting. The results of the study were capsulized in Science News magazine. If the results prove sound, and brain-opiate blockers gain favor in eating-disorder therapy, it will be a rarity among food studies. Science not only will have pinpointed just why some guilty pleasure should make you feel guilty, while offering an admonishment to resist temptation. It will also have shown a way to help lessen it.

With 35 percent of American women and 31 percent of American men considered obese - and obesity a factor in many chronic illnesses, including heart disease and hypertension - this would be welcome help for getting off a bender that is sweet. And, for some, deadly.

by CNB