Caloric Foods Are Addictive, Like Drugs

Author: Maryam Ayres Time for reading: ~1 minutes Last Updated: August 08, 2022

Over time, the pleasure of consuming fatty foods decreases, and to meet our needs, we increase the quantities ....

The high-calorie, high-fat foods served in fast food restaurants create such an addiction in people, controlled by the same molecular processes in the body as in drug addicts.

The results of the study, conducted by American researchers, are published in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience.

According to the authors, their discovery could be used in the future in the treatment of manic addiction to high-calorie semi-finished products.

Frequent consumption of chips, chocolate products and carbonated beverages creates in the body a constant desire to absorb sugar, salt and fat. According to scientists, over time, the pleasure of consuming such foods decreases, and to meet our needs, we increase the amount of food consumed.

"Our research confirms what many other scientists have long suspected - excessive consumption of otherwise tasty but high-fat and high-calorie semi-finished products causes a number of neuroadaptive processes in the pleasure centers in the brain. In more severe cases, you can even become addicted to greasy or sweet things. Addiction to drugs or narcotics is based on the same mechanism, ”explains the study's lead author, Professor of Neurology Paul Kenny.

Experts explain that the consumption of so-called "Junk food" can become a substitute for happiness and lead to addiction. Ingestion of increasing amounts of junk food inevitably leads to weight gain and even severe obesity.

For the study, Dr. Kenny divided experimental rats into three groups that were subjected to different diets. Scientists have found that pleasure centers located in the brain lose their sensitivity to fats and carbohydrates. Food no longer brought the same pleasure, and experimental animals ingested larger and larger quantities.

Experimental rats were found to be reluctant to consume food with a lower salt and carbohydrate content, even when it was the only food offered to them.

Experts define the observed behavior as absolutely similar to that of heroin and cocaine addicts. According to scientists, the same mechanism of neuroadaptation determines drug and food dependence.

Caloric Foods Are Addictive, Like Drugs

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