Demi Lovato has talked openly about how she used to binge and purge up to five times a day. Elton John also battled the binge-purge habit. And around 3 million Americans contend with binge eating disorder (BED), making it the second most common eating disorder in this country.

BED is also associated with other health challenges: Almost 80% of people who binge also deal with anxiety, depression, or chronic stress.

It's taken a long time to figure out what non-emotional factors might contribute to BED, but now researchers from Buck Institute for Research on Aging have found that certain chemicals in cooked and processed foods fuel hunger and erode your ability to make healthy food choices.

Those chemicals are called advanced glycation end products (AGEs).

AGEs form in foods when sugars and proteins are exposed to dry heat during baking, frying/air frying, grilling, or toasting. They create tantalizing smells and tastes, and are intentionally added to some processed foods to stimulate appetite and provoke continued eating.

In lab studies, AGEs not only make subjects eat more and put extra effort into finding more food, they fuel neurodegeneration.

If you want to control your binge eating (and avoid premature aging), eliminate as many AGEs from your diet as possible by opting to steam, poach, or boil fish and lean animal proteins, and by eating lots of fruits and vegetables. They're naturally lower in AGEs  if not cooked excessively. Raw, plant-based choices are also very good.