So you've suffered frontal lobe injury...

The following exerpt is from an article entitled "Lessons from Gourmand Syndrome" which strikes hilariously close to home:

It sounds like a joke. Someone suffers a stroke -- or a brain tumor or a traumatic head injury -- and is suddenly transformed into a gustatory hedonist.

Indeed, Zurich neuropsychologist Marianne Regard wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t stumbled across the first signs of this "gourmand syndrome" herself, 8 years ago. Since then, she and Geneva University neurologist Theodor Landis have tallied 36 Swiss patients who, after sustaining sudden-onset damage to the brain -- usually in the right frontal region -- developed a preoccupation with fine foods.

This is no simple, newfound appreciation of gourmet fare, she and Landis report in the May Neurology, but an intense, consuming passion for food -- addictionlike cravings for their taste, an inordinate interest in their appearance, a savoring of trips to shop for ingredients, and delight in the memory of particular restaurant experiences.

The first victim of gourmand syndrome -- or beneficiary, as the case may be -- was a political journalist who had never been particularly concerned about what he ate. He amiably consumed whatever his wife put before him. When he occasionally ate out, he exhibited no particular preference for one type of food over another.

Following a stroke, however, he at once began carping about the hospital’s meals and reported thinking of little but good-tasting food prepared and served in a nice restaurant.

In time, Regard asked the patient to record his thoughts each day. It was in going over them that she realized his interest in food had developed into an obsession. His diary was riddled with observations, like "it is time for a real hearty dinner, e.g., a good sausage with hash browns; or some spaghetti bolognese; or risotto and a breaded cutlet, nicely decorated; or a scallop of game in cream sauce with spätzle [a starchy, pasta-like side dish]."

Now describing himself as a connoisseur, he lamented being "dried up here, just like in the desert. Where is the next oasis, with date trees and lamb roast or couscous and mint tea, the Moroccan way -- real fresh?"

Four months later, when the man was fit to return to work, his old job awaited him. However, the preoccupation with food had overtaken his once-consuming enthusiasm for politics. So he resigned his job as a political reporter and became a columnist on fine dining. His food fixation even carried into his personal life, Regard and Landis report. For instance, his family found that the only way to pique his interest was to talk about food. Moreover, the Swiss scientists note, the man’s "desires for meals prepared at home became more precise and exotic."

What first suggested that the journalist’s case wasn’t a fluke, Regard says, was the finding soon thereafter of another patient who, following a stroke, also began waxing rhapsodic about food. Until then, the man had been concerned about his looks and tennis but never about what he ate. Immediately after the stroke, however, this businessman became consumed by food -- to the point of frequently initiating discussions of food fantasies.

And if I hadn't self-diagnosed myself already, the article goes on to list further symptoms:

Most of the newfound gourmands that Regard and Landis studied had other cognitive changes after their brain injury -- especially visual-spatial problems. Fully 26 of the patients also had impaired memory, and several, including the journalist, had a weakening on the left side of their bodies.

Behavioral changes also emerged. For instance, the businessman suddenly began making inappropriate sexual advances. Others became overly talkative, newly aggressive, more ambitious, or emotionally unstable. Landis now suspects gourmand syndrome "is just one aspect, probably, of a much broader disturbance of impulse control."