A new study has found that food addiction is for real with researchers claiming that some people may have an instinctive, psychological predisposition to binge eating.

Claus Voegele, a professor of clinical and health psychology at University of Luxembourg in Luxembourg, said that women dealing with obesity were found more impulsive than average in a food-related psychology test.

''All addictions are similar in that the sufferer craves to excess the feel-good buzz they receive from chemical neurotransmitters produced when they eat, gamble, smoke, have sex or take drugs," Voegele added.

For the study, Voegele and his team showed images of fatty or sweet food (a burger, cake or pizza etc.) and non-food items (a sock, a mug or a shoe etc.) to the participants on a computer screen. The images were flashed randomly.

The women were then asked by the researchers to click on either the food or non-food pictures as fast as possible.

The researchers conducted the tests either three hours after eating or just after meals and found that most of the women who were dealing with weight problems felt craving for food after going through the test.