|
Junk Food Nearly as Addictive as Heroin
David Gutierrez
Natural
News
March 18, 2010
Junk food appears to be almost as addictive as heroin, according
to a study conducted by researchers from the Scripps Research
Institute and presented at the annual meeting of the Society
for Neuroscience.
"This is the most complete evidence to date that suggests
obesity and drug addiction have common neuro-biological foundations,"
researcher Paul Johnson said.
The researchers fed rats one of three diets: a nutritious diet,
a healthy diet with restricted access to junk food, or a diet
of unlimited junk food. Junk foods included cheesecake, chocolate,
sponge cake and fatty meat. Mice in the third group quickly
became obese, while the weight of mice in the first two groups
did not change.
To test the effects of junk food on the brain's pleasure centers
-- the areas affected by drugs -- the researchers electrically
stimulated those areas whenever the mice ran on a wheel. The
longer a rat ran on the wheel, the more pleasure it would receive.
While rats in the first two groups did not change their wheel-running
behavior, the rats eating junk food soon began running on the
wheel for longer periods -- suggesting that their brain's pleasure
centers had become less sensitive. Consistent with this finding,
the rats began eating more and more food, suggesting that their
bodies had become desensitized to the pleasure the food was
producing.
The researchers then began exposing rats to painful electric
shocks whenever they ate junk food. The rats on the restricted
junk food diet quickly stopped eating the food, but the binge-eating
rats were undeterred.
"You lose control. It's the hallmark of addiction,"
researcher Paul Kenny said.
When the bingeing rats were deprived of junk food and given
only healthy food, they refused to eat anything for two weeks.
"It's almost as if you break these things, it's very,
very hard to go back to the way things were before," Kenny
said. "Their dietary preferences are dramatically shifted."
"What we have are these core features of addiction, and
these animals are hitting each one."
|
INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
|
|
