The compulsive eating paradigm: can psychedelics help in treating obesity?
Journal of eating disorders April 7, 2025 Dhanush Ammineni, Rebecca Park 1 citation
Obesity involves behavioral factors that traditional treatments often fail to address. Like addiction, a chronic energy-dense diet can disrupt dopaminergic reward circuits, making individuals habitually responsive to food cues despite negative health outcomes. Psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD may reduce the top-down influence of maladaptive reward predictions on perception and attention, potentially opening a window of psychological flexibility. This could allow individuals to adopt new cognitive and behavioral strategies through assisted psychotherapy, encouraging beneficial changes in eating behavior. However, new research is needed to assess the potential efficacy of this approach for compulsive eating.