Body mass index across adolescence and substance use problems in early adulthood.

ABSTRACT: Excessive substance use and obesity are underpinned by a number of shared risk factors (e.g., reward dysfunction, impulsivity). Food and drugs of abuse engage similar reward-related neural circuitry and the food-drug competition hypothesis proposes that excess consumption of food may diminish desire for drugs of abuse by competing for neural receptors associated with reward and motivation. Adolescence is a high-risk period for both increased substance use and excessive weight gain. In the present study, the authors tested whether, consistent with the food-drug competition hypothesis, elevated body mass index (BMI) across adolescence predicted fewer substance use problems in young adulthood. In a multiwave prospective study of a community sample of families enriched for high levels of subst

SUBMITTER: Gearhardt AN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5962025 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature