Fast Food As Addictive As Heroin, Study Confirms

[WrenBird 11]

Scientist have previously proven links between drug addiction and fast-food addiction, but now there is a growing body of research that is finding out how junk food is hard wiring our brains for cravings.

The latest study, published March 28 in "Nature Neuroscience," likened the affects of high-fat, high-calorie fast food to those of cocaine or heroin, in animals at least.

The researchers showed that the pleasure-center in rats brains were overstimulated from the fast food similar to an addict's cocaine binge. Eventually, the pleasure centers became so overloaded that rats needed more and more food to feel normal, according to Paul H. Kenny, an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute.

Throughout the study, Kenny and his co-author studied three groups of lab rats for 40 days. The first group ate healthy food. The second ate a limited amount of junk food. The third group, however, was allowed to gorge on high-fat, high-calorie foods and became obese.

The startling side effect? The brains of the obese rats changed.

"The body adapts remarkably well to change -- and that's the problem," Kenny said in a press release. "When the animal overstimulates its brain pleasure centers with highly palatable food, the systems adapt by decreasing their activity. However, now the animal requires constant stimulation from palatable food to avoid entering a persistent state of negative reward".

During the study, the rats lost complete control over the ability to regulate whether they were hungry, often eating despite electric shocks. When the obese rats were put on a healthy diet, they refused to eat, starving themselves for two weeks.

In another study, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City showed that feeding rats a diet high in saturated fat, calories and sugar -- which is the typical make-up for a fast-food menu item -- lowered the rats ability to respond to leptin, a hormone that helps regulate eating behavior by controlling how full one feels. As rats grew fatter, the amount of leptin in their bodies increased signaling that they were dangerously close to starvation. They continued to overeat and gain weight.

Those who yo-yo diet face similar problems that those going through withdrawal do, Boston University researchers proved last year. According to Pietro Cottone, an assistant professor in the Laboratory of Addictive Disorders at BU, dieters seek out foods to avoid the negative feelings that they experience if they are deprived of their favorite comfort foods.

"These findings confirm what we and many others have suspected," Kenny said, "that over-consumption of highly pleasurable food triggers addiction-like neuroadaptive responses in brain reward circuitries, driving the development of compulsive eating. Common mechanisms may therefore underlie obesity and drug addiction."

Found here: Fast Food As Addictive As Heroin, Study Confirms - That's Fit

P.S: Sorry if this has already been posted. :blushing:

[Vanilla sky 28]

Thank you for posting this I had my whole family read it.

[WrenBird 11]

vanilla sky" data-cite="Vanilla sky" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="116293" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic">

Thank you for posting this I had my whole family read it.

Awww, no worries :-)

Glad to see the word's getting around.

BTW: Refined sugar is also addictive.

[Noturningback15 45]

I have to say one part of this was so funny to me because it states that the Obese rats refused to eat for 2 weeks when put on a healthy diet! LOL! I guess that's the difference between obese rats and obese humans because I don't know one obese person to stop eating for 2 weeks! Healthy food or not we are gonna eat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Vanilla sky 28]

WrenBird you need to look up The Diet Solution by Isabella Del Rossi. It's a 15 minute video keep a pen and pad beside you to take a few quick notes. My husband and I started to eat this way back in March and I lost 15 pounds in the first week. If you do let me know what you think.

[WrenBird 11]

I have to say one part of this was so funny to me because it states that the Obese rats refused to eat for 2 weeks when put on a healthy diet! LOL! I guess that's the difference between obese rats and obese humans because I don't know one obese person to stop eating for 2 weeks! Healthy food or not we are gonna eat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2 weeks seems a bit excessive for humans, but it makes sense for rats. People do stop eating when junk food isn't available, which I think is the point they're trying to make. The duration of that period of not eating is irrelevant because we're as a different species with different needs.

I knew that before I got my band I used to get hostile when someone didn't buy me my favourite foods...It was all junk food, of course. If there wasn't junk food in the fridge or pantry I wouldn't eat and I'd get very very mad and complain that there was nothing to eat.

In those days I was a very very upset girl and the fridge was always full of nutritious foods that I eat now, but wouldn't think to of eaten back then.

I once went 3 days without eating and told my doctor that it was because my mum hadn't gone shopping. There was plenty of salad in the fridge, I was just being a bitch. It's amazing what the asbence of an addictive thing can do to someone...I was a completely different person when I was forced to eat like a normal person.