27 October 2009

The Science Of Junk Food

from Tonic.com


It’s a nutrition study that totally puts the crack in pork cracklings.

As ScienceNews reports, a neuroscience study reveals why our sense of self-control may get tossed out the window when the salty, fatty snacks are close at hand. An investigation into the linkage between nutrition and the brain indicates that brain circuitry is actually rewired as a result of consuming certain junk foods, closely mirroring the changes in the brain that stem from heroin use.

Study co-author Paul Johnson of the Scripps Research Institute in Florida observes of his team’s findings that “[t]his is the most complete evidence to date that suggests obesity and drug addiction have common neurobiological underpinnings.”

According to ScienceNews, the study began with Johnson and team returning from the grocery store loaded with such fare as snack cakes, bacon, sausage and other tasty-but-ghastly treats. Half of the team’s test rats were fed appropriately portioned nutritious food, and the other half were given all-you-can-eat buffet privileges at the junk food cafe set up for the study.

Those in the latter group were observed to lose any sense of moderation, going back for more on a routine basis, taking in double the caloric intake of their healthy diet peers, and rapidly developing obesity.

The gluttonous behavior resulted from changes that occurred in the brain. Johnson and team discovered that the junk food diet activated the pleasure and reward functions in the brain, and altered them permanently. Precisely in the same manner observed in those addicted to drugs such as opiates, more and more of the substance — in this case, junk food — was required to activate the reward response in the brain.

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