Famine Study Finds Possible Link Between Addiction, HungerFebruary 5, 2008
Research Summary
Dutch children born during a famine in the 1940s were more likely to have addiction problems later in life, according to a new study that highlights a possible role in addiction for the brain center responsible for hunger,
USA Today reported Feb. 3.
A study of addiction-treatment patients found that those born to mothers during the so-called "Dutch hunger winter" caused by Nazi Germany in 1944-45 were up to three times more likely to need addiction treatment.
"We know that addiction is related to our brain's reward system," says lead author Ernst Franzek from the Bouman Mental Health Care in Rotterdam. "This system, I think, develops very early in brain development, because animals also have this reward system."
The study was published in the journal
Addiction.
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