Scientists Question Whether Fast Food Is Addictive

[Guest guest]

> Scientists Question Whether Fast Food Is Addictive

> Wed January 29, 2003 03:14 PM ET

>

> LONDON (Reuters) - A steady diet of hamburgers,

> fries and foods high in fat

> and loaded with calories may not only pile on the

> pounds -- some scientists

> are questioning whether it could be addictive.

> Researchers who have been testing the biological

> effects of fast foods are

> discovering that they can trigger hormonal changes

> in the body which could

> make it difficult to control eating.

>

> " New and potentially explosive findings on the

> biological effects of fast

> food suggest that eating yourself into obesity isn't

> simply down to a lack

> of self-control, " New Scientist magazine said on

> Wednesday.

>

> Fast food meals can deliver nearly the recommended

> daily calorie and fat

> intake in one meal. As people put on weight, they

> become more resistant to

> the hormone leptin, which is strongly linked to

> weight and appetite, and a

> brain peptide called galanin that stimulates eating.

>

> Leptin releases signals to the part of the brain

> that co-ordinates eating

> behavior but as people gain weight they become more

> resistant to the effects

> of the hormone.

>

> " Their brain loses its ability to respond to these

> hormones as body fat

> increases, " Michael Schwatz, an endocrinologist at

> the University of

> Washington in Seattle, told the magazine.

>

> Animal studies by Sarah Leibowitz, at Rockefeller

> University in New York,

> have also shown that young rats fed a high fat diet

> early in life grew up to

> be obese adults.

>

> Researchers are also looking into whether bingeing

> on foods high in fat and

> sugar cause changes in the brain associated with

> addiction to drugs.

>

> " Highly palatable foods and highly potent sexual

> stimuli are the only

> stimuli capable of activating the dopamine system

> with anywhere near the

> potency of addictive drugs, " according to John

> Hoebel, a psychologist at

> Princeton University in New Jersey.

>

> But the magazine said other scientists argue there

> is no conclusive evidence

> that foods high in fat and sugar are addictive.

>

> " Considering the paucity of evidence that fast food

> is addictive, I think

> the burden is on advocates of the addiction argument

> to provide evidence of

> addictiveness, " said Michael Jacobson of the Center

> for Science in the

> Public Interest, a lobby group in Washington.

>

>

 

 

 

 

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