title: Neuro-Genetics of Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS) as the Root Cause of "Addiction Transfer": A New Phenomenon Common after Bariatric Surgery.
abstract: Now after many years of successful bariatric (weight-loss) surgeries directed at the obesity epidemic clinicians are reporting that some patients are replacing compulsive overeating with newly acquired compulsive disorders such as alcoholism, gambling, drugs, and other addictions like compulsive shopping and exercise. This review article explores evidence from psychiatric genetic animal and human studies that link compulsive overeating and other compulsive disorders to explain the phenomenon of addiction transfer. Possibly due to neurochemical similarities, overeating and obesity may act as protective factors reducing drug reward and addictive behaviors. In animal models of addiction withdrawal from sugar induces imbalances in the neurotransmitters, acetylcholine and dopamine, similar to opiate withdrawal. Many human neuroimaging studies have supported the concept of linking food craving to drug craving behavior. Previously our laboratory coined the term Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS) for common genetic determinants in predicting addictive disorders and reported that the predictive value for future RDS behaviors in subjects carrying the DRD2 Taq A1 allele was 74%. While poly genes play a role in RDS, we have also inferred that disruptions in dopamine function may predispose certain individuals to addictive behaviors and obesity. It is now known that family history of alcoholism is a significant obesity risk factor. Therefore, we hypothesize here that RDS is the root cause of substituting food addiction for other dependencies and potentially explains this recently described Phenomenon (addiction transfer) common after bariatric surgery.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Mcknight Brain Institute, University of Florida, College of Medicine, Gainesville, Florida, USA ; Department of Holistic Medicine, G & G Holistic Addiction Treatment Center, North Miami Beach, Florida, USA ; Department of Clinical Neurology, PATH Foundation NY, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Kenneth
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Blum
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bailey
authors.forename: Anthony M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Gonzalez
authors.forename: Marlene
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oscar-Berman
authors.forename: Yijun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Giordano
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Braverman
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gold
keywords: Addiction transfer; Bariatric surgery; Cross tolerance; Dopamine; Reward Deficiency Syndrome; Reward genes