If you crave treats, beware! Studies show that food that’s not nutritious increases levels of a hormone that overrides satiety, the body’s signal to stop eating. In other words, eating what you want rather than what you need could lead to overeating.A report, published online in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, showed that eating for enjoyment prevented satiety. In other words, if people did not feel full, they continued eating - potentially leading to a condition known as chronic hedonic hyperphagia. Before you reach for a treat to cope with all these scientific words, here's a few more. The hedonic hyperphagia state is reached because treats eaten for pleasure stimulate the body’s reward system in a way that nutritious foods don’t. More precisely, study participants who ate treats were found to have increased levels of the hormones, ghrelin and 2-arachidonoyl glycerol (2-AG). Ghrelin fuels hunger and 2-arachidonoyl glycerol (2-AG) stimulates the brain to make you feel good. The resultant cravings override satiety, leading people to overeat.Sweet treats are of course generally high in fructose, which creates two problems. Fructose is digested in your liver, not your intestine and is immediately turned into stored body fat - weight gain. Fructose also inhibits leptin levels. Leptin is the hormone in your body that tells you when you are full. Most people keep eating when they don't know they are full.Interestingly, another study showed that people who ate food for pleasure had lower incidents of heart disease than people who ate nutritious food for health. This correlation may have arisen because people who eat healthily tend to stress out about which foods are, or are not, nutritious. This stress leads to indigestion and can ultimately lead to poor food choices and cravings.The bottom line is that eating for pleasure may be healthy, but individuals must experience satiety or control portion size to prevent overeating.As a matter of interest, donuts are one of those foods with absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever. Choose the apple! Image: Shutterstock