Am I addicted?
by Robert Fahey
Fast Food ‘addicts’ may be just that. ADDICTED.
Junk Food may seem like an addictive drug because it is. Well at least in rats, scientists have discovered that too much fatty food raises the threshold for feelings of satisfaction sparking a cycle of compulsive eating.
This may go a long way to explaining why western cultures are seeing record levels of obesity.
In people, addictive drugs desensitise the brain by raising the threshold of the ‘reward’ activity that is needed to feel satisfied: over time more of the drug is needed to feel the same effect.
If this is the case the obesity epidemic has one of its root causes not in fatty foods, but the desensitising effect of fatty foods. More interestingly, in the west the significant increase in the use of animal products (the meat and wheat combo) most likely increases this effect.
The invention of the sandwich has a lot to answer for!
Research done by Paul Kenny (2009) and colleagues at the Schripps research Institute in Jupiter Florida found that fatty foods do actually cause desensitising effects on the brains of rats. The probability that this effect is the same in humans is very compelling.
I was drawn to the details of the experiment. They used electrodes to measure the sensitivity of the rats brains to reward activity. Some ate normal rat food while others had limited and unlimited access to junk foods. These are tasty to both rats and humans. After only 40 days the brains of those that ate junk food freely were less sensitive than in the other groups. Interestingly they were also obese.
All the rats learned that a flash of LED light led to a painful electric shock moments later.
Rather than avoid the shock addicted rats carried on eating rather than avoid the shock.
This behavior is the same as drug addicts and alcoholics in humans.
It was also noted that the dopamine receptors for reward were reduced in these addicted groups.
This research suggests that a drug rehabilitation program may be more successful in helping people lose weight than a diet.
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