Fatty foods may cause cocaine-like addiction

Fatty foods may cause coc aine-like addiction

www.cnn.com

A new study in rats suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as coc aine and heroin. When rats consume these foods in great enough quantities, it leads to compulsive eating habits that resemble drug addiction, the study found.
Doing drugs such as coc aine and eating too much junk food both gradually overload the so-called pleasure centers in the brain, according to Paul J. Kenny, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute, in Jupiter, Florida. Eventually the pleasure centers "crash," and achieving the same

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When we experience pleasure, our brain forces us, if possible, to find more of the source of that pleasure. That it doesn't matter if it's food, drink, stimulus or whatever, I don't imagine, is too surprising.

Why is this? Is it related to survival of the fittest ... because in this instance (with regard to food), there seems to be a path toward a potentially earlier death from diabetes, heart attack, stroke, the many outcomes of excess weight?

www.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

This irks me that scientists need a study to prove it. I have thought this for years now and just like any addiction it has to come down to self responsibility. I myself am a larger person but as anyone with an addiction can tell you, it is hard to overcome. The problem with this certain addiction is that every ad you see is promoting this food. Imagine crack being advertised everywhere you go when you are trying to get clean.

Originally posted by Hadrian


When we experience pleasure, our brain forces us, if possible, to find more of the source of that pleasure. That it doesn't matter if it's food, drink, stimulus or whatever, I don't imagine, is too surprising.

Why is this? Is it related to survival of the fittest ... because in this instance (with regard to food), there seems to be a path toward a potentially earlier death from diabetes, heart attack, stroke, the many outcomes of excess weight?

www.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

If you can get to all those fruits in the tree, you'll do whatever you can to keep getting them Thus the winners get all the fruits.

Reaping the benefits

As someone three years clean, I honestly can't see fatty foods as addictive as 'said' substance.

All anyone needs is discipline, and accountability to themselves.

It's the damndest thing when you see someone whose been off heroin for over a decade and has been doing fine for years, than see someone say "oh the hamburger, I can't stop it's just to appealing!".

I'm the other way and have tested it time and time again with myself!

Fat is not the problem imo it's the sugar and carbs....if I consume more of those i'm like a junky and can't control myself! however, cutting down on the carbs and nearly limiting sugar to zero whils consuming a higher amount of fat has none of the affects the carbs do! plus I eat less, get fuller quicker and don't have headache's as often amongst countless other things!

interesting topic anyways!

[edit on 29-3-2010 by valiant]

Originally posted by Republican08

If you can get to all those fruits in the tree, you'll do whatever you can to keep getting them

Thus the winners get all the fruits.

Yes, but what if one result of eating the fruit was, for example, a broken leg? What would be the biological impetus for you to continue to gather and eat fruit ... if you could?

Originally posted by Republican08

As someone three years clean, I honestly can't see fatty foods as addictive as 'said' substance.

All anyone needs is discipline, and accountability to themselves.

It's the damndest thing when you see someone whose been off heroin for over a decade and has been doing fine for years, than see someone say "oh the hamburger, I can't stop it's just to appealing!".

Not to diminish any of your achievements at all, but does it always really boil down to discipline? If the item(s) you are/were addicted to were 1,000 times more chemically addictive to your brain (just theoretically), would you still argue your personal willpower is all that separates you from being an addict/non-user?

Sometimes it seems people don't understand that addiction isn't about willpower ... it's about chemical forces upon human physiology that may or may not be able to be overcome through personal willpower.

And my belief is that we don't understand the role/effects of A)the manufactured "food" we eat and B)the interrelationships between synthetic chemical compounds and human biology (which is really the same as 'A,' but said in an effort the differentiate between normal biological relationships and the wild cards that processed foods have thrown into the mix).

i mean just to reiterate a "coc aine-like addiction" is not, "gimme some more cheesy poofs, i can't get enough." it's more like a systemic, biological requirement that while you are alive and able to move and interact with other humans, you must go out and find some more cheesy poofs, else you will die.

One thing i have found is that exercise is very important to keep your eating in check. If you do so much exercise you can eat what you want.

But everyone is different and thats why a diet will work for one and not for others.

Originally posted by Hadrian
Yes, but what if one result of eating the fruit was, for example, a broken leg? What would be the biological impetus for you to continue to gather and eat fruit ... if you could?

It is my opinion that the brain and the survival mechanism has an extremely short term outlook, so eating fatty food with the potential of dying from it 5-10 years later is not really important to your brain. Of course, nowadays we can get information about things like this and make our own conscious decision on the matter - but only because of the huge luxury most of us are lucky to have in the Western world with the abundance of food.
Even if you make a conscious decision to not overeat or go on a diet, your brain isn't having any of it ! It'll still nudge you, and practically insist you continue eating !

High calorie food would is advantage for survival, so I would say it's an evolutionary advantage to want to seek it out, even if it's bad for you to eat too much calories in the long run.
Also, life expectancy was so much shorter not so long ago, so dying at about 40 due to heart attack, diabetes etc. from over-eating would be no different from dying at that age from something like an infected tooth - as people apparently used to not too many years ago.
All you'd need to do for this trait to be potentially passed on, is to not die before you'd finished breeding.



[edit on 29-3-2010 by Benji1999]

Give your head a shake folks - now TPTB are labelling anything that gives you pleasure as "addictive" and of course addictions must be controlled with the force of law "for your own good".

Do you really want to give government the power to control the feeling of pleasure in a human being?

TIRED OF CONTROL FREAKS

Originally posted by TiredofControlFreaks
Give your head a shake folks - now TPTB are labelling anything that gives you pleasure as "addictive" and of course addictions must be controlled with the force of law "for your own good".

Do you really want to give government the power to control the feeling of pleasure in a human being?

TIRED OF CONTROL FREAKS

what's your stance on cigarettes? is that just gubment weaseling its ways into our living rooms or are there real negative affects from cigarette smoking that our government should make efforts to amplify amongst the general population? i undertand your wariness about government power.

aside from that, perhaps the ultimate definition of pleasure may be an inscription upon the brain which says "in the future, when in contact with X item, must have it."

seems to me, a significant part of life is delineating the line between the accepted experience of pleasure and the point of unaccepted abuse. clearly, everything that is pleasured by some can be lethal for others.

Originally posted by Benji1999
It is my opinion that the brain and the survival mechanism has an extremely short term outlook, so eating fatty food with the potential of dying from it 5-10 years later is not really important to your brain.

I agree. Why is this?

Is evolution too stupid to keep up with human rationalization? Or does it not matter, speaking from an evolutionary point of view, because chances are, whatever you do to kill yourself, you've likely already passed on your genes if you're going to do so ... and that's the point - as opposed to how long you, as an individual, live?

Originally posted by Hadrian
I agree. Why is this?

Is evolution too stupid to keep up with human rationalization? Or does it not matter, speaking from an evolutionary point of view, because chances are, whatever you do to kill yourself, you've likely already passed on your genes if you're going to do so ... and that's the point - as opposed to how long you, as an individual, live?

I personally believe that it's human rationalisation that is stalling evolution in this instance by hindering the expected natural selection.
Someone's brain will be telling them to eat high-fat, high-calorie food, but their rationalisation that it'd be gluttonous and bad for them takes over from their instinctive pleasure seeking urge to eat high calorie, fatty food. Yet, their children will just inherit the same genetic urges, and use their rationalisation and willpower to overcome it, and continue the cycle.
So really, I think it's the separate trait of human intelligence that usually overrides and prevents the natural selection of this short term eating urge out of the species.

I believe that it's as you say in regards to passing on your genes. I think that - for whatever reason - is the main 'aim' the brain appears to nudge you towards.

Or then again, coc aine and heroin might stimuli the same regions as fatty foods (and other sweet tasting things) in humans..

D'oh..



This is once again similar to the logic of someone in a research saying "Coffee does not actually cause depression, but instead it frees Dopamine".. (Which actually, in real life is the cause of the lack of the Dopamine -> which is the cause of depression [in the body] caused by coffee)

(..edit: and yes, there really have been studies that said this..)

Soon we might have studies that say

"SEX inhibits similar hormones as Extacy and Amphetamine": study finds, only because amphetamines and extacy do cause similar hormones and brain areas to be stimulized..

..naturally sex and lovemaking would be BAAAADD!!!

..surely that must be the case, because we get dopamines out of it, just like the heroin addicts do.

[edit on 29-3-2010 by Jussi]

I'm sorry but coc aine and heroin are 1000 times more reinforcing and pleasurable than eating fatty foods.

Originally posted by blayze
I'm sorry but coc aine and heroin are 1000 times more reinforcing and pleasurable than eating fatty foods.

you say that ... and "speak" as if you know what you're talking about (and hopefully you do), but are you aware that some consider nicotine more addictive than coc aine or heroin? are you positive that it's impossible that the over-processing of modern food doesn't entail the possibility of additives with properties of addiction? or even that 100% natural foods don't involve an index within the brain that flirts with qualities of abnormal desire? i don't know, just wondering.

Personally speaking I can't imagine being on a diet of super-size MaccyD's, take-aways and huge amounts of coca cola/alcohol on a weekly basis.
I'm actually quite the opposite where if I have too much intake of something say like Coca Cola i'd have to equal it out with Water, or If I excess too much in fatty foods when i've not had a regular meal for 2 days i'll have to eat at least some green's.

I simply cant see how individuals can sit infront of a TV and eat themselves to death, nor at least get paid on benefits for the priviledge.

we can get pleasure from food that is not as bad for our health as fatty foods

so I think its more about marketing. accessibility and money; there are a lot of good fast good that is not bad for our health, its all about $$