Fatty Foods May Cause Cocaine-like Addiction

A new study has recently come out that claims that the consumption of fatty foods may actually lead to a cocaine-like addiction which causes compulsive eating habits. The study, which was done on rats, showed that high-fat, high-calorie foods affects the brain in much the same way as these drugs. Drugs and over eating both over stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain; after awhile, these pleasure centers may “crash” meaning that even more food must be consumed to achieve the same amount of pleasure as before. The neurotransmitter dopamine is expected to be the culprit that leads to such gross over eating in rats and also in humans. When the rats in the study ate too much, levels of dopamine dropped, much the same way that levels are low in humans that are addicted to drugs like cocaine and heroin. Although, the study is quick to state that not everyone with low dopamine levels is going to be obese or an addict, it may be a good indicator of future obesity.

This article interested me because it puts a real medical spin on the problem of obesity in the U.S. Being supplied with this information may keep some people from over eating in the future. If more people knew that simply eating too much could become an addiction and lead to obesity in the future, fewer people may being the habit.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/28/fatty.foods.brain/index.html

Brittany Guth
VTPP 435-501