“On average, dopamine receptor density is reduced in the VTA target regions of obese subjects as compared with those lean subjects (a characteristic that can be measured in a brain scanner). But the key question remains: Do obese individuals show reduced dopaminergic activation of VTA target areas in response to food? Is a blunted pleasure response to food involved in obesity?”

“How does stress influence the midbrain pleasure circuit (or the feeding control circuits)? The short answer is that we don't really know. However, there are some tantalizing initial clues. Recall that twenty-four hours after a single exposure to cocaine, the excitatory glutamate-using synapses recived by VTA dopamine neurons express LTP. This change, which will result in greater dopamine release in VTA target areas, could also be produced by nicotine, mophine, amphetamines, or alcohol. Amazingly, even breif exposure to stress (a rat's five-minute-long forced swim in cold water) also produced LTP of the VTA synapses that was indistinguishable from that evoked by drugs. What's more, the stress-induced LTP could be prevented by pretreatment with a corticosterone receptor blocker. This suggests that drugs and stress rewire the pleasure circuit in overlapping ways and that the stress response to trigger LTP in the VTA requires a stress hormone signaling loop from the brain to the body and back.”

“Ascribing personal responsibility to the obese individual is not a rational argument for an eminently practical reason: it fails to advance any efforts to change it. The obesity pandemic is due to our altered biochemistry, which is a result of our altered environment.”

“If sex were food, Rhage would haven been morbidly obese.”

“If sex were food, Rhage would have been morbidly obese.(Dark Lover)”

“We must realize that growth is but an adolescent phase of life which stops when physical maturity is reached. If growth continues in the period of maturity it is called obesity or cancer. Prescribing growth as the cure for the energy crisis has all the logic of prescribing increasing quantities of food as a remedy for obesity.”