May 28, 2015 08:44 PM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

New research suggests that impulsivity may be related to binge eating.

Researchers at Michigan State University found that people who are impulsive are more likely to binge eat when experiencing negative feelings. In the study, binge eating is defined as the uncontrollable consumption of a large amount of food in a short period of time.

"It's human nature to want to turn to something for comfort after a bad day, but what our research found is that the tendency to act rashly when faced with negative emotions is a personality trait that can lead to binge eating," Kelly Klump, senior author of the study, said in a statement.

For the study, researchers interviewed more than 600 female twins. Of this group, 14 percent had binge eating, overeating (consumption of a large amount of food without a loss of control) or loss of control over eating (difficulty controlling one's consumption of even a small amount of food). They determined that people with these eating problems generally had higher levels of 'negative urgency,' or a tendency to act impulsively when experiencing negative emotions, than those who did not have pathological eating.

Researchers also found that "both overeating and feeling out of control when eating small or normal amounts of food were related to rash action when experiencing negative emotions," Sarah Racine, lead author of the study, said in a statement.

The findings, which are detailed in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, are important implications for treatment, researchers said.

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