Eating too much to simply satisfy your pleasure for food? Then you’re probably one of those people confronting with the major threat of this century: obesity. This is the conclusion of a new study published in the October 17 edition of the journal Science made by researchers at the Oregon Research Institute, University of Texas, Yale University and the John B. Pierce Laboratory.

Eric Stice, a senior scientist at the Oregon Research Institute in Portland, conducted the study. He and his colleagues scanned the brain of 43 women and 33 adolescent girls while they were given either a chocolate milk shake or a tasteless drinking. The researchers wanted to see how much activity was in the brain’s dorsal striatum, a region rich in dopamine, also known as the “pleasure chemical.”

The scans found not so intense activity in this part of the brain in obese women drinking the milkshake suggesting that they might be prone to eating more to satisfy their pleasure for food compared to skinny women participating in the study. The participants were also tested for a particular genetic variant - TaqA1 - which is linked to fewer dopamine receptors in the brain. The study found that obese women had this gene.

“The research reveals obese people may have fewer dopamine receptors, so they overeat to compensate for this reward deficit,” Dr. Stice said.

Based on the findings, doctors could determine whether a person carries the A1 gene version from an early age, thus urging parents to make sure that their children have a healthy diet and get enough exercise, in order to prevent obesity, a condition which further leads to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea, several types of cancer and osteoarthritis