Competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi, who won six straight July 4th Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contests from 2001 through 2006, is retiring.

The Japanese national, 46, has lost his appetite for competition and worries about the effect on his health from consuming so much food in such tight bursts.

“It’s all I’ve done for the last 20 years. … I have mixed feelings. But first, I want to fix my brain and my gut,” Mr. Kobayashi said in a Netflix documentary “Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut,” according to WNBC-TV in New York.

He no longer feels much hunger, and has even gone three days without eating.

“When you eat too much, you lose the ability to smell the food, and you also ignore signals from your body, such as feeling full,” Mr. Kobayashi said, according to The New York Post.

In the documentary, doctors found that, when Mr. Kobayashi looks at food, the parts of his brain related to nausea activate.

“Your brain still thinks you’re in competition, in a state of eating highly processed food,” neuropsychologist Annie Gupta told Mr. Kobayashi, according to the Post.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.