Tempting food can trigger the urge to engage (Reuters)

CHICAGO (Reuters) - see a milkshake can activate the same brain areas that light up when a drug addict see cocaine, American researchers, said Monday.

The study helps explain why it may be difficult for some people to maintain a healthy weight, and why it was difficult for the cash and health experts find obesity treatments that work.

"If certain foods are addictive, this may explain in part that the people of difficulty of experience in the realization of sustainable weight loss," Ashley Gearhardt from Yale University in Connecticut and colleagues wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The Gearhardt team wanted to see what is happening in the brain when young women are tempted by a tasty treat.

They used a type of brain imaging, known as to fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging to study brain activity in 48 young women who offered a milk chocolate or a tasteless solution. Women in the study varies between lean and obese.

The team found that the light triggered milkshake brain activity in the anterior Cingulate cortex and medial orbitofrontal cortex - areas of the brain involved in the envy of the addict use drugs.

And this activity was higher among women in the study of scores higher on a scale that assessed their eating habits for signs of addictive behavior.

"These results confirm the theory that compulsive consumption of foods may be driven in part by increased anticipation rewarding properties of foods", wrote the Gearhardt and his colleagues.

People who are addicted to a substance are more likely to respond to changes in physical, psychological and behaviour when exposed to this substance. Alter "Visual cues" - tempting treats display panels, could for example - help to curb the desire to engage, they said.

They wrote "ubiquitous advertising food and the availability of good palatable food markets may make it extremely difficult to adhere to healthier food choices,.", because the ubiquitous food cues trigger the reward system

The study suggests that the advertising could also play a role in the problem of obesity of the nation, and future studies should look at whether the food ads trigger this type of brain activity.

Obesity is one of the greatest challenges of the United States health, and health officials have already added a requirement new Act health of the President Barack Obama demanding that restaurants add calorie counts to their menus.

(Edited by Laura MacInnis)

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