Fatty Foods May Cause Cocaine-Like Addiction 507
WrongSizeGlass writes "A new study in rats suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin. The rats that gorged themselves on the human food quickly became obese."
OK, so now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Availability (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:To quote the great Bob Saget (Score:2, Insightful)
Its a good point however if you could get cocaine/heroine for 99 cents, on ANY corner, in a drive through. If it was advertised on every nearly every billboard, if it was glorified on every commercial as a way to bring the family together or to just relax after a hard days work. If no one went to jail for making it. Then no one would to need to suck anything to get one either.
Re:To quote the great Bob Saget (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope. And no-one would if drugs were legal and cheap.
Re:OK, so now... (Score:2, Insightful)
Right, because Fat people are responsible for the first fatty foods they ate given to them by their parents just like a drug addict, right?
You are probably some young punk who is thin without having to work at it. I was that way, once. 165 lbs ad 5'11" when I got out of high school. Well believe me, even if you work at keeping thin, it's still possible to get fat no matter what you do.
And if you can't have respect for fat people, try a little sympathy.
Funny... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, unlike these rats, I did not eat cheesecake, frosting or other foods high in refined carbs. But this POS study doesn't bother to differentiate between high-fat/high-carb, high-fat/low-carb, etc, let alone about the balance or type of fatty acids present in the food (e.g. grass-fed bacon vs. grain-fed). This is not science, not even close.
Duh. Biologically We've Still In The Savannah. (Score:3, Insightful)
Millions of years of evolution makes animals crave high calorie fatty food and eat as much of it as possible, because they never know when they're going to get the opportunity to do so again. Human beings are no different.
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:4, Insightful)
High fats aren't the problem - high carbs are, especially the kinds in corn syrup and sugar (starches are a little less bad, but still bad overall).
Note that you need some, but not as much as you get in some of these foods.
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:2, Insightful)
the sugar lobby is weak (USA). That's why there is so damn much HFC in everything. It's the corn lobby that's strong
Re:To quote the great Bob Saget (Score:3, Insightful)
That was a real funny quote that actually got me thinking years back that cannabis might not be so bad as some people try to scare you into believing... Nobody sucks dick for weed, and nobody overdosed on the stuff *ever*... Sadly you can't say the same about fatty (or sugary) foods, the death toll is like 0 to a couple million. But I must note that there might be a slight correlation between the two caused by the munchies.
Re:Now the question regards addiction strength. (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, I wonder if this study holds true for various other pleasurable inputs.
Yes. All this research shows is that pleasurable stimuli are reinforcing. Fatty foods activate reward pathways in the same way cocaine does. But so does sex, gambling, shopping, video games, etc. Choose your poison.
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:2, Insightful)
It's salty though, and that's not really good either.
Don't worry, the nanny state is hard at work [nypolitics.com] here too. We'll keep you safe, because you are obviously too stupid to make informed decisions for yourself.
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:3, Insightful)
If you do any real exercise then you need a pretty high proportion of your total calorie intake in complex carbs . It's worth distinguishing between simple carbs and complex carbs, You don't really need much sugar in your diet, but you need a reasonable amount of complex carbs.
If you're a total couch potato you're going to have health issues whatever kind of diet you take.
Though I agree, I ask of you to suggest some numbers, some reasonable proportions rather than "much" and "reasonable".
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been doing this weird thing lately.... "cooking". From base ingredients. I don't mean some kinda "all natural" kick, but most of my meals are cooked using basics. Flour. Sugar. Water. Various cooking oils. Beef/Chicken/Vegetable stock. Spices. Rice. Pasta in reasonable amount. Vegetables - fresh or fresh frozen -- which should take up a larger portion of your meal than they probably do. I also started exercising* a few times a week, and eating reasonable proportions -- and as a result of those changes have lost forty pounds and counting. I still eat the crappy stuff with too much HFCS and excessive fat (I've a mental addiction to cheeze-its and butterfingers) but in moderation.
THe problem here isn't HFCS. It's not fatty foods. If anything, part of the problem lies in looking for external factors to blame. It's eating too much food, too regularly, and most of us not getting any significant exercise*. In my case, for a long time it was lack of knowledge of when is "enough" to eat .(Hint - if you feel full when you're done eating, you've eaten far too much.) Once you have that knowledge, it's also lack of willingness to exercise self control.
The point of this mini-rant: look to yourself when trying to find a reason. For the vast majority of people, it starts and ends there. If you think it's HFCS -- ok, fine. But HFCS in quantity is far easier to avoid than you make it sound. Hell, fresh bread takes 30 minutes of actual time once a week, without even using a bread machine. Most other alternatives are as easy; or come with a slight increase of time in exchange for healthier food that tastes as good or better.
* By "exercise" I'm not talking about anything drastic. I started walking my dogs for 30 minutes at a brisk walk, 4-5 times a week. I also started using stairs instead of elevators for up to three flights at work and not just one flight. More recently I've started running, but that's after I lost most of the weight and I do it because (amazingly) I find that it feels good.
Re:Solely focused on consuming food... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or maybe the obese rates are those that had no self-control to start out with. If that's the case, the severe obesity might simply be a visible indicator of a very real character flaw. (Although I have serious questions about the meaning of "moral failure", if brain chemistry determines a person's actions.)
Unless you're going to invoke some mythological explanation like a soul, brain structure and chemistry determine all of a person's actions. We may be extremely complex and chaotic (in the formal mathematical sense), but we're still automata, just like everything else in a deterministic universe.
Re:Solely focused on consuming food... (Score:2, Insightful)
Or maybe the obese rates are those that had no self-control to start out with. If that's the case, the severe obesity might simply be a visible indicator of a very real character flaw. (Although I have serious questions about the meaning of "moral failure", if brain chemistry determines a person's actions.)
First, the obese rats were the ones in the "eat sugary fatty food" condition, they were not self-selected. Second, if brain chemistry doesn't determine one's actions, what does? Are you a dualist or something?
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Solely focused on consuming food... (Score:1, Insightful)
There might be some other interpretations as well. For example, if the brain chemistry provides such a powerful compulsion, then my sympathy for people in this category goes up, because leaving a donut in the box might be as hard as a coke addict leaving a line on the table.
There is no doubt that for some people leaving the last donut is next to impossible. Just knowing it is in the house is next to impossible for some of these folks.
Or maybe the obese rates are those that had no self-control to start out with. If that's the case, the severe obesity might simply be a visible indicator of a very real character flaw. (Although I have serious questions about the meaning of "moral failure", if brain chemistry determines a person's actions.)
Self-control is probably one of the greatest illusions society has created to date. We are a thousand years of civilization in 100,000 years of human existence. Self-control did not exist for 99% of our time on this planet. We were instinct and little else.
If you can resist eating high-fat/sugar foods, it is almost certainly a result of your particular brain chemistry. Your 'character', if such a thing even exists, (we've all read Lord of the Flies and seen the truth in it...) is mostly derived from your current environment, brain chemistry and genetic makeup. All factors over which you had no hand in.
Re:Solely focused on consuming food... (Score:4, Insightful)
Until science offers a completely predictive model of behavior and thoughts, it would be premature to assume that a soul (in the classical definition) does or doesn't exist. Just as there are "God in the gaps" belief patterns, there can also be "science in the gaps" belief patterns.
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:3, Insightful)
Pasta is not good, not least because wheat is generally not good for you. Naturally occurring sugar is still sugar - it matters not. With fruit you may get a few extra nutrients with it, but it doesn't make the sugar content itself any better for you.
Re:Yeah, I can see that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Canning depletes many nutrients, and check the labels -- a lot of canned goods (as well as everything else) have loads of corn syrup. The best way for the poor to eat healthy is to grow a garden; that's what I did when I was poor, and what's more the food tastes a lot better than anything you can buy.
Second best is the most expensive, that's at the farmer's market.
After that is frozen; I always thought I hated peas until I ate fresh ones, turns out it's just canned peas I hate, frozen are almost as good as fresh.
Many of the poor have the added disadvantage of having no transportation, making them spend more than they can afford on poor nutrition foods, because they're limited to the bus line. You can't buy what you cant reach.
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, I can see that... (Score:2, Insightful)
The issue is actually with the lack of decent grocery stores in poorer neighborhoods; if you can only practically shop at fast-food restaurants and convenience stores then healthy food, even if it is affordable, is not available to you. It is something that h
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:3, Insightful)
One nice thing about bacon, particularly if you like it crispy, is that you can cook a good chunk of the fat out of it. Sure, it's not great for you, but crispy bacon in moderation isn't too bad.
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:3, Insightful)
HFCS isn't everywhere. It's just in all the crappy food that you have in your pantry.
Did you think about what you were posting before you posted it?
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:3, Insightful)
You have it backwards - that bill would allow people to choose by adding their own salt to food, instead of having it arrive with some unknown quantify of salt in it already. As I read it, that bill did not ban restaurants from having a salt shaker on the table. (If so, I would oppose it). So it doesn't actually restrict salt, it just makes it "opt in" instead of having no choice.
Before / After ban (Score:3, Insightful)
After the ban "against excessive salt in processed foods" :
- People who don't like too salty food and people with medical problems (hypertension) :
buy processed foods.
- People who like salty food and who don't give crap about their health :
buy processed foods.
sprinkle some additional salt before consumption.
---
Before the ban :
- People who like salty food and who don't give crap about their health :
buy processed foods.
- People who don't like too salty food and people with medical problems (hyper-tension) :
too bad for you !
Re:OK, so now... (Score:3, Insightful)
And if you can't have respect for fat people, try a little sympathy.
I feel sympathy towards overweight children because their parents are more than likely the cause. The parents should care more about making sure their child is healthy.
I do not, however, feel sympathy towards fat adults. I'm fat myself. I know it is within my power to correct the issue, I'm just lazy. I don't mean that I do nothing but sit around. I'm lazy about watching what I eat and in what portions. I expect a large number of overweight people have similar stories.
Re:Solely focused on consuming food... (Score:3, Insightful)
It also has possible implications for for the culpability of others in the illness of the obese. With drugs, we might blame the addicts, but then we'd probably also blame the drug dealers and try to throw them in jail. Where does McDonalds stand?
Re:Solely focused on consuming food... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that depends on whether or not the universe is deterministic. Maybe. I haven't had nearly enough education or coffee to speak intelligently on this topic.
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait, suggesting that we're eating bad foods is "looking to external factors to blame", but suggesting that we're eating too much food isn't? I don't see the difference.
The difference is between blaming the foods you eat, and accepting responsibility for your choice to consume them -- and there *is* a choice.
Beyond that, *everything* has HFCS in it. If you go to the grocery store and buy bread and apple juice, each of those probably have corn syrup in them.
Fresh meats don't. Frozen and fresh vegetables don't. Potatoes (even several brands of instant potato) don't. There's a huge list of things that *don't* have it -- but that depends on the types of things you're looking to buy.
Yes, it's theoretically true that we could expect people to cook all their own meals from scratch, never go out to eat, bake their own bread and juice their own fruits.
Nowhere did I say "all" or "never" though. I still go out. I still eat store-bought bread (though not as often). I still eat quick meals. I just do so in moderation, and never as much as I used to. Still -- there's this thought that "cooking from scratch" needs to be a difficult and arduous task -- when most of the time it seldom takes as long as required to bake a frozen meal, or run to the store to pick up some take-out. The only down-side is more dishes to wash ;) And it's possible to get juices without sugar added - mostly due to the increasing market for diabetics, but it does exist. Personally, I just eat the fruit these days instead of drinking juice but that's my own choice.
*Or* we could think about whether the people making billions of dollars from feeding us have some responsibility to provide healthy food, but I guess that's just expecting too much from people
It is expecting too much. Don't lose sight of the fact that they make billions of dollars by selling the things that people want to consume. If there's a market for other options, then things will be sold to fill that market. (And they are.) The only responsibility sellers have is to sell things that make money. That in no way abrogates our responsibility to know what we're eating.
Lets instead expect everyone to grow and butcher their own livestock and live off of what fruits and grains and vegetables they can grow in their own gardens, since we can't afford to trust the people providing our food
Of course we can trust. But we also should be aware of what we're putting into our bodies, shouldn't we? And not just take someone's word for it? Or just assume that because someone is selling it, it must be healthy for us?
Re:It is only a matter of time... (Score:2, Insightful)
So here is the thing. Government policy in the United States is designed to promote obesity by socializing the costs of obesity. The first cost is the food itself, which the government pays for in the forms of, to name two, food stamps and the earned income tax credit. Everyone in the United States is required, by law, to pay for food to feed fat people. Really. The second cost of obesity, greatly increased medical care, is now socialized as well. Those costs could be reflected immediately to the individual in the price of insurance when the insurance market is deregulated and insurers are permitted to charge fatties more. If all those fatties had to pay for their food and pay more for health insurance then their would be a lot fewer fatties. Instead, now, a person who eats responsibly and exercises and who will require far less medical treatment as a result will pay the same amount for medical insurance as they guy who eats two dozen doughnuts for breakfast.
You do realize that the countries you mention at the beginning of you post (Sweden, Japan, and Uraguay) all have socialized medicine and provide food-stamp like programs for the poor? Nobody wants to be fat and sick. If I told you that if you moved into the projects and quit your job, you could eat Twinkies until you went into a diabetic coma, would you? If you want to look at government causes for obesity look at subsides for grain and sugar farmers, not the fact that now some poor people will get the same medical care as the rich.
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:3, Insightful)
> Those "studies" must be BS, because nobody ever said "man I'll suck your dick" for a pack of sugar.
I recomend you don't ask your nan what she did back in the war to get by then.
In conclusion supply / demand. If sugar were as restricted as coke your dick would be sucked for it just as much.
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:4, Insightful)
Buy your girlfriend some nice chocolates. You might be surprised.
Re:OK, so now... (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed... I have no one to blame but myself. It's not society's fault; it's not McDonald's fault (although I don't eat there anyway, but you get the idea).
I'm a work-a-holic right now, have two kids to chauffeur around, and don't take the time to eat right and exercise. When I make a conceivable schedule for a day and squeeze in proper meals and a workout around work and kids, my wife asks "where am I on your list?" It just doesn't all fit. But it's my choice, I just choose to continue taking my kids to the things that I hope will help keep them from getting this way (sports and dance classes).
But I know it's my choice and I know I'm taking the easy way out when I eat junk.
Re:That happens when its BOTH high-fat and high-ca (Score:2, Insightful)