Gut Reaction: Overeating Can Impair Body Function : NPR

Gut Reaction: Overeating Can Impair Body Function : NPR:

"...overeating causes biological changes in the body that can lead to more food cravings and cause your stomach to send mixed signals about when it's actually full. As the years go by, those holiday pounds add up.

Dr. Rita Redberg, a cardiologist at the University of California at San Francisco, says each January she sees many patients lugging around an extra five pounds. Or more....

Overeating "sets your body chemistry sort of into red alert," says Dr. Sasha Stiles, a family physician who specializes in obesity at Tufts Medical Center. "The kinds of hormone and metabolic processes that normally will try to metabolize food will go into overdrive to make sure they get rid of this huge food load," Stiles explains.

This means that much of what you eat will be stored as fat rather than converted into healthy byproducts"