Eating fatty food encourages you to eat more fat and so on…

Compounds called endocannabinoids that are a human bodies version of active compound found in marijuan, have generated a lot of interest recently due to their role in inducing endless hunger resulting in Binge eating.
Scientists and Pharamacologists from University of California, Irvine and the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, Italy, led by Daniele Pomelli, discovered they play a major role in overeating.
Several kinds of endocannabinoids are released in the brain and body, but researchers are still discovering the nitty-gritty of where and when these compounds regulate mood and behavior.
So the researchers fed rats one of four liquid diets: fat (in the form of corn oil), protein, sugar or a nutrition shake combination of fat, protein and sugar. To ensure that the body’s digestive signals wouldn’t interfere with the experiments, a surgically implanted valve in the rats’ upper stomach drained the food once eaten. Then the team measured endocannabinoid activity in the brain and other tissues. Compared with rats eating sugar or protein alone, rats on the fat diet had a surge of endocannabinoid activity in their gut, the team reported online July 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And these rats wouldn’t stop slurping their corn oil. When given a compound that blocked the cellular buttons that the endocannabinoids typically hit, the fat-eating rats immediately stopped eating.

That a feedback loop in animals encourages bingeing on fats makes sense, says Angelo Izzo of the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, who was not involved in the work. From an evolutionary point of view, fats were once a valuable, rare commodity that played a pivotal role in survival.

It’s been known that marijuana smokers get the munchies and endoccannabinoids are behind the hunger. However, this research finds that the endocannbinoid triggerring due to eating fat takes place in the gut.The new research is exciting because it suggests blocking endocannabinoid activity in the gut might curb overeating, says Izzo. A drug designed to do just that turned out to also interfere with endocannabinoid activity in the brain, making some people anxious and irritable. But in the new work, the fat-triggered activity was localized to the gut. Piomelli’s team hopes to generate new drugs that wouldn’t enter the brain.