High-calorie Foods May Be Addictive as Nicotine
By admin on 2015-01-05

High-calorie foods may be addictive as cocaine or nicotine, according to a study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience Sunday.

Paul J. Kenny, Ph.D., the lead author of the study, said that doing drugs such as cocaine and eating too much junk food both gradually overload the so-called pleasure centers in the brain.

Eventually the pleasure centers "crash", and achieving the same pleasure -- or even just feeling normal -- requires increasing amounts of the drug or food, said Kenny.

Researchers studied three groups of lab rats for 40 days. The first group was fed normal rat food. The second group was allowed to gorge on sweets and junk food for one hour a day. The third was allowed unlimited amounts of junk food for 23 hours of the day.

The third group began to eat compulsively. When researchers applied an electric shock in the presence of food, the first two groups shied away from eating, while the third group continued eating.

Obesity may be a form of compulsive eating. The findings in a study of animals cannot be directly applied to human obesity, but may help in understanding the condition and in developing therapies to treat it, according to the researchers.