Free & easy access to fattening foods causes obesity....
Today's Post: Monday, 3-29-2010
Today, AFP online health news had this story.: (So did several other news services.)
“Junkies and junk-food addicts share craving mechanism Mon Mar 29, 2010 PARIS (AFP)
The same molecular pathways that steer people into drug addiction also lie behind the craving to overeat, driving individuals into obesity, a new study suggests.
The research, based on lab animals, bolsters long-standing suspicions that addiction to pleasure stems from overstimulus of a key reward mechanism in the brain, its authors say.
Publishing online in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida fed rats high-fat, high-calorie treats -- bacon, sausage, cheesecake and so on -- and watched the rodents bulk out dramatically.
The junk-food rats gobbled down twice as many calories as "control" rodents fed on a more balanced diet.”
The researchers had 3 groups. One got standard food; one had access to human comfort foods such as desserts, snacks, and fatty meats – but only for an hour a day; the third group that became unable to stop eating normally had 24 hour a day, “open bar” access to the fattening human comfort foods.
That third group, researchers found, became physically addicted to the fattening food; began eating more than twice the calories their bodies needed; and rapidly became obese.
To put it in layperson’s terms, they burned out their reward system enough that they needed the extra goodies to feel normally good. Key dopamine receptors declined in this third group of rats. So they needed the extra dopamine released by eating the fattening, reward foods to feel normally good.
To me, this has four implications.
First, I recently read that it is now relatively commonplace that toddlers have access to a continuous and unlimited supply of such feel good treats.
No one in his or her right mind who knows of this research and what it means would ever do such a thing to a child.
This research shows that doing this virtually guarantees these kids will be obese all their lives and stunted by the multiple medical problems this causes. Worse, if it happens soon to the vast majority of children, we simply will not be able to afford the medical care tab to treat these kids as they grow up. With that heavy a braking effect on our economy, it could simply collapse.
That, to my mind, makes massive education efforts for parents and schools extremely important, and very high taxes on this stuff virtually mandatory.
Second, no one should buy jumbo sized bottles or boxes or containers of such foods to snack on continuously in front of the TV every day.
The things I just said about doing to our children what the researchers did to the rats that made them addictively obese, applies to such purchases for adults too. The media should let people know what buying these things and consuming them any time you want for hours a day will to you. And, such super-sized containers should be so heavily taxed very few people buy them at all – perhaps to the point, they stop appearing on store shelves.
In addition, if you or your kids have been living that lifestyle and are fat or obese now, note that the rats that had some, an hour a day, limited access to this stuff but NOT unlimited 24- seven access, did NOT have the addiction problem. So one way to step down from having it 24-seven is to make it very limited access only.
This may be very challenging for some people. The rats they simply stopped feeding the fattening stuff to entirely declined to eat most of the normal food they had access to for two full week afterwards! My hope is that people who learn how harmful it is to ingest most of this stuff will be able to cut back about 70% or 80 % at first on how much they eat and drink and then cut down an additional 80 to 100 % of the remaining stuff after that. (Some of it is a LOT more harmful than others. Soft drinks and most desserts and snacks made with refined grains are harmful enough to cut back 100% at the end. )
Some rewarding foods better made with more traditional ingredients such as sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup and butter instead of the deadly, partially hydrogenated oils or with whole grains or olive oil in some cases, may still be OK once a week or less. And, fatty meats without nitrates or with onions and garlic or both once a week or less may be OK
Third, this research completely or very close to completely explains why one of the drugs that successfully helped people lose weight and fat, had as one of its two parts an effective anti-addiction drug.
This is a good news—bad news point. The good news is that if you are so addicted, you can get medical help to give you back control of your appetite.
The bad news is that the current expectation of people with little education, and even many who have some education, who now think that open access to treat foods is safe and normal to make use of. This research shows that’s totally false. It is NOT safe. It’s addictive and quite dangerous due to the obesity and removal of people’s ability to control what they eat that it causes.
Fourth, this suggests that obesity based on 24-seven access to fattening foods is actually a disease that doctors should know how to treat.
That’s very new indeed.
Today's Post: Monday, 3-29-2010
Today, AFP online health news had this story.: (So did several other news services.)
“Junkies and junk-food addicts share craving mechanism Mon Mar 29, 2010 PARIS (AFP)
The same molecular pathways that steer people into drug addiction also lie behind the craving to overeat, driving individuals into obesity, a new study suggests.
The research, based on lab animals, bolsters long-standing suspicions that addiction to pleasure stems from overstimulus of a key reward mechanism in the brain, its authors say.
Publishing online in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida fed rats high-fat, high-calorie treats -- bacon, sausage, cheesecake and so on -- and watched the rodents bulk out dramatically.
The junk-food rats gobbled down twice as many calories as "control" rodents fed on a more balanced diet.”
The researchers had 3 groups. One got standard food; one had access to human comfort foods such as desserts, snacks, and fatty meats – but only for an hour a day; the third group that became unable to stop eating normally had 24 hour a day, “open bar” access to the fattening human comfort foods.
That third group, researchers found, became physically addicted to the fattening food; began eating more than twice the calories their bodies needed; and rapidly became obese.
To put it in layperson’s terms, they burned out their reward system enough that they needed the extra goodies to feel normally good. Key dopamine receptors declined in this third group of rats. So they needed the extra dopamine released by eating the fattening, reward foods to feel normally good.
To me, this has four implications.
First, I recently read that it is now relatively commonplace that toddlers have access to a continuous and unlimited supply of such feel good treats.
No one in his or her right mind who knows of this research and what it means would ever do such a thing to a child.
This research shows that doing this virtually guarantees these kids will be obese all their lives and stunted by the multiple medical problems this causes. Worse, if it happens soon to the vast majority of children, we simply will not be able to afford the medical care tab to treat these kids as they grow up. With that heavy a braking effect on our economy, it could simply collapse.
That, to my mind, makes massive education efforts for parents and schools extremely important, and very high taxes on this stuff virtually mandatory.
Second, no one should buy jumbo sized bottles or boxes or containers of such foods to snack on continuously in front of the TV every day.
The things I just said about doing to our children what the researchers did to the rats that made them addictively obese, applies to such purchases for adults too. The media should let people know what buying these things and consuming them any time you want for hours a day will to you. And, such super-sized containers should be so heavily taxed very few people buy them at all – perhaps to the point, they stop appearing on store shelves.
In addition, if you or your kids have been living that lifestyle and are fat or obese now, note that the rats that had some, an hour a day, limited access to this stuff but NOT unlimited 24- seven access, did NOT have the addiction problem. So one way to step down from having it 24-seven is to make it very limited access only.
This may be very challenging for some people. The rats they simply stopped feeding the fattening stuff to entirely declined to eat most of the normal food they had access to for two full week afterwards! My hope is that people who learn how harmful it is to ingest most of this stuff will be able to cut back about 70% or 80 % at first on how much they eat and drink and then cut down an additional 80 to 100 % of the remaining stuff after that. (Some of it is a LOT more harmful than others. Soft drinks and most desserts and snacks made with refined grains are harmful enough to cut back 100% at the end. )
Some rewarding foods better made with more traditional ingredients such as sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup and butter instead of the deadly, partially hydrogenated oils or with whole grains or olive oil in some cases, may still be OK once a week or less. And, fatty meats without nitrates or with onions and garlic or both once a week or less may be OK
Third, this research completely or very close to completely explains why one of the drugs that successfully helped people lose weight and fat, had as one of its two parts an effective anti-addiction drug.
This is a good news—bad news point. The good news is that if you are so addicted, you can get medical help to give you back control of your appetite.
The bad news is that the current expectation of people with little education, and even many who have some education, who now think that open access to treat foods is safe and normal to make use of. This research shows that’s totally false. It is NOT safe. It’s addictive and quite dangerous due to the obesity and removal of people’s ability to control what they eat that it causes.
Fourth, this suggests that obesity based on 24-seven access to fattening foods is actually a disease that doctors should know how to treat.
That’s very new indeed.
Labels: excessive comfort foods are addictive, how junk foods make you fat, new key to fat loss, new reseach will change public policy on harmful foods
posted by David at 12:53 PM
2 Comments:
Very nice post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and wanted to say that I have
really loved surfing around your weblog posts. In any case I'll be subscribing for your feed and I hope you write again soon!
Feel free to visit my blog post Weight Loss Plans
This website is a list service for dozens of fat loss plans and services. But since they almost all suggest dropping these kinds of foods and soft drinks, they all likely help people avoid this junk.
So, while I think some of these plans are more effective than others, this is an on topic post even though it's an ad.
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