With the rumors swirling that Michelle Obama is a big fan of former FDA Commissioner David Kessler’s new book The End of Overeating, it seems reasonable to check in on the science behind an “addiction model” for salty, sweet, and fatty processed food (an assertion at the core of the book). As it happens, a group of researchers from the independent, not-for-profit Scripps Research Institute has just released a new peer-reviewed study on the subject. The conclusion: the brain responds to junk food the same way it does to heroin:
Junk food elicits addictive behavior in rats similar to the behaviors of rats addicted to heroin, a new study finds. Pleasure centers in the brains of rats addicted to high-fat, high-calorie diets became less responsive as the binging wore on, making the rats consume more and more food. The results, presented October 20 at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting, may help explain the changes in the brain that lead people to overeat.
“This is the most complete evidence to date that suggests obesity and drug addiction have common neurobiological underpinnings,” says study coauthor Paul Johnson of the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla.
Johnson offered one group of rats a broad range of processed food, from bacon and cheesecake to Ho Hos while another received a “high-nutrient, low-calorie chow.” There was an immediate difference:
Rats that ate the junk food soon developed compulsive eating habits and became obese. “They’re taking in twice the amount of calories as the control rats,” says Johnson’s coauthor Paul Kenny, also of Scripps.
The researchers also tested the responsiveness of the animals’ pleasure centers:
After just five days on the junk food diet, rats showed “profound reductions” in the sensitivity of their brains’ pleasure centers, suggesting that the animals quickly became habituated to the food. As a result, the rats ate more food to get the same amount of pleasure. Just as heroin addicts require more and more of the drug to feel good, rats needed more and more of the junk food. “They lose control,” Kenny says. “This is the hallmark of addiction.”
And here’s where things get ugly. The rats wanted their junk food fix so badly, they were willing to tolerate electric shocks if that’s what it meant to keep eating the stuff.
To see how strong the drive to eat junk food was, the researchers exposed the rats to a foot shock when they ate the high-fat food. Rats that had not been constantly exposed to the junk food quickly stopped eating. But the foot shock didn’t faze rats accustomed to the junk food — they continued to eat, even though they knew the shock was coming.
“What we have are these core features of addiction, and these animals are hitting each one of these features,” Kenny says.
Because a study like this isn’t complete without a sinister postscript, I give you this:
Scientists are interested in determining the long-term effect of altering the reward system. “We might not see it when we look at the animal,” says obesity expert Ralph DiLeone of Yale University School of Medicine. “They might be a normal weight, but how they respond to food in the future may be permanently altered.”
Eating junk food for a while could leave your brain’s response to food “permanently altered”? How. Nice.
Kinda puts industry calls for preserving consumer “choice” regarding the foods we eat into perspective, doesn’t it? When it’s an addiction, choice is the last thing we have. Besides giving ammunition to those wanting to restrict access to these foods for children (well, for anyone really), this study certainly ensures that I will never look at a Ho Ho the same way again.
H/T Jambutter via Twitter
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Comments
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Rachel M Posted 11:31 am
28 Oct 2009
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Catmoves Posted 7:09 am
03 Nov 2009
This kind of article, purporting to be "scientifically" based should be relegated to the Sunday newspaper fillers.
I will point out that at one time tobacco was simply a mild drug that anyone should be able to avoid using continually. The manufacturers killed that off by adding chemicals to keep users hooked. (Oh, yeah, our government came to the "rescue" by spending billions of our dollars when all that would have been needed was to prevent that from happening.)
Now, the same sort of thing has happened to our foods. The conglomerate food processors have given us smaller and thinner shelled eggs (your grandmother would have looked at one of graded "large" eggs and sniffed. And she would have been correct to say "that's a small egg".
But that downsizing isn't all. Now the giant "farmers" are giving us irradiated foods and hybrids that carry only a part of the nutrition we really need to sustain ourselves. So we eat more, the clothing manufacturers are happy (at least those in China) the "government" and "special interest" groups are avoiding the logical step of testing this garbage we are being sold as nutritious and we grow obese.
Want something to think about? Diabetes was, a few years ago, an affliction that was minimally taking its toll. Today, there is a subculture of millions of people suffering and dying because of its sudden growth. Sugar seems to have taken the upper hand in this, but as it reacts in different ways depending on with what it is mixed we can't say it is the cause of diabetes. There are no known studies underway about this problem.
For those interested in a bit more chemistry, the food you give your dogs and cats from those cans and bags is primarily chemically manufactured. As we are aware, cats and dogs are carnivores. (They are not herbivores nor omnivores.) That title alone tells us that their bodies are designed (and function best) when they have meat to eat. Giving them chemically altered vegetables and fruits is not what Mom Nature planned for them. Think about what we are doing to our defenseless pets.
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Tom Laskawy Posted 11:40 am
28 Oct 2009
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Marla-Family Fresh Cooking Posted 12:05 pm
28 Oct 2009
We need to feed our children nutrient dense foods. We help them to build life long habits when they are young. Adults need to be role models to their children is so many ways......what they put into their bodies is a crucial modeling tool. Children watch us and learn from us constantly.
In my blog http://www.familyfreshcooking.com I encourage, inspire and provide healthy, clean, yummy recipes to keep families on the right track!!!
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DrPam Posted 12:57 pm
28 Oct 2009
The CRS Institute,
a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit
dedicated to research & education
on the factors surrounding Chemical Reactivity Syndrome
http://www.ChemicalFreeSkinny.com
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mtvyfan Posted 12:06 pm
29 Oct 2009
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teethetrav Posted 5:26 pm
29 Oct 2009
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HealthyHiker Posted 8:07 am
31 Oct 2009
The findings are accurate.
Ingredients like highly refined sugar create an enormous physical addiction. The consumer is left in an altered, high like state after eating things like cookies and candy bars with refined sugar. Overtime, our bodies process this response as the "normal" way we should feel.
The research findings underscore the incredible importance of feeding our children a diet largely free of refined high sugar/salt/artificial ingredient laden food choices. The adage about learning good eating habits early is very true.
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HealthyHiker Posted 8:12 am
31 Oct 2009
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/3/former_fda_commissioner_david_kessler_the
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HealthyHiker Posted 9:36 am
31 Oct 2009
Previous research into sugar consumption reveals that refined sugar causes high spikes in blood sugar followed by an immediate crash. Refined salt consumption strips our body of minerals.
Also, research has demonsrated that the decreased nutrients in many crop foods and processed foods today causes our body to over-compensate by eating more of it to get the minerals and vitamins etc that we need.
When we consume whole, unrefined, minimally- processed foods in balanced meals, we are nourishing ourselves with all the minerals and vitamins and other nutrients our bodies need. This results in a healthy body chemistry and satisfied feeling. Ending our addiction to overeating the wrong foods.
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amazingdrx Posted 6:08 am
03 Nov 2009
But as you probably know from hiking, there is still hope for those addicted to junk food. These scientists are wrong in their dire prognosis.
The bad news for the addicted? The only cure is exersize, aerobic exersize of at least 45 minutes duration per day. Junk food, heroin, crack, even tobacco can be overcome with the brain biochemical restoration of aerobic exersize.
The dopamine effect described in the article in which the rats needed more and more junk food to get the pleasure center reward, is the explanation. Aerobic exersize restores dopamine levels in the brain and clears out dompamine receptors, the sites in the brain that become clogged with the consumption of the addictive substance.
As the receptors get filled it takes more and more of the addictive agent to get a pleasure response and only time abstaining form the substance and/or exersize can clear the receptors. Addiction does not give one time for abstinence. Exersize speeds the receptor restoration.
The really frightening thing about addiction is that it renders mirror neurons inoperable. Mirror neurons allow the empathy response to occur. And that empathy response is the key to the success of civilization. The old golden rule, universal ethical behaviour. Without which we would all turn into cigar chomping, fentanyl consuming limboobs, looking out for ourselves alone. Hehehey.
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StephenR Posted 1:37 pm
03 Nov 2009
"Junk food elicits addictive behavior in rats similar to the behaviors of rats addicted to heroin, a new study finds."
But grist wrote:
"Scientists claim junk food is as addictive as heroin "
bit different to:
"The conclusion: the brain responds to junk food the same way it does to heroin:"
Isn't it?! Would be interesting to know what the response was from the addicted rats when they didn't get junk food, to continue the addiction theme.
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jonnyappleseed Posted 5:56 pm
03 Nov 2009
I appreciate StephenR posting the two different paragraphs. Mr Laskawy does us a disservice when he distorts to make what is ultimately a silly point.
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alamar Posted 6:23 pm
03 Nov 2009
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HealthyHiker Posted 6:37 pm
03 Nov 2009
The use of addiction can be understood if you have experienced it. Everyone has different body chemistry and we were all raised with different dietary habits. For some people, refraining from eating sweets is as hard as it is for smokers to refrain from smoking a cigarette.
If you watch the Democracy Now link I sent, you will learn that part of the problem is that when we eat, we are laying down neurocircuitry in our brain that our bodies remember.
For many people who are trying to overcome bad eating habits, they have to spend a long time laying down new neurocircuitry. This means sticking to a healthful diet for a very long time so your body can learn a new way of being.
The reason so many people trying to lose weight by going on diets fail because their bodies learned over a long period of time that the feeling that they had after eating a lot of refined sugar etc was normal, when it was not.
Like I said in my last point, we should stick to real, whole foods and balanced meals.
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alamar Posted 9:50 am
04 Nov 2009
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ljc4918 Posted 11:24 am
06 Nov 2009
I would also argue that certain junk foods are necessary for happiness. I have no problem giving up things made in a factory with ingredients that I can't pronounce, but I see no problem with eating Christmas cookies once a year.
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savethepolarbear Posted 3:35 pm
06 Nov 2009
I speak from personal experience dealing with over-eating as well, and as someone who has researched how to overcome it. There are different aspects to over-eating these types of food. One is that these chemicals are limiting nutrients in nature. We are programmed to seek out sources that provide these chemicals and when they are readily available to someone in a refined manner they will have a tough time choosing other options. Another aspect, not completely different, is that there are other emotional issues when it comes to 'abusing' food. Some individuals over-eat because they are lacking something in their lives. A void that is not filled. Food is used to fill an emotion that is not quenched. Emotions can be triggered by many things so it can go beyond a simple compulsive action.
I don't believe certain junk foods are necessary for an individuals happiness as this happiness can be fulfilled by other means.
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