Food Addiction and Tobacco Use Disorder: Common Liability and Shared Mechanisms

Course overview

This narrative review explores the parallels between food addiction and tobacco use disorder, highlighting the need for a better understanding of their overlap. The review examines literature on prevalence, biology, psychology, and treatment options for both disorders. Commonalities such as dopaminergic neurocircuitry, gut microbiota, childhood adversity, and attachment insecurity are discussed. The authors also conducted a feasibility study to examine the association between food addiction symptoms and tobacco use disorder among individuals seeking treatment. The review concludes that further research is needed to identify and understand the relationship between these two disorders to inform future treatment approaches.