Mounting evidence is suggesting that fatty and processed foods are not just bad for our waistlines, but actually affect our brains in similar ways to drugs like cocaine and nicotine.  According to a recent article, in the past year, 28 scientific studies have been published about the addictive properties of certain foods.

Historically, diets have always contained fats and sugar.  However, today there are so many processed foods on today’s grocery shelves, we’re seeing foods with elevated levels of sugars, unhealthy fats and refined flour, and void of healthy nutrients and fiber.  Experts believe that eating large amounts of these processed foods may be changing the way the brain is wired.

When we eat these processed foods, our brains react as would be expected in a drug addict and we experience rapid spikes and drops in blood sugar, which stimulates cravings.

A few of the studies from the past year highlighted binge-eating rats who became addicted to the level of sugar contained in soda, and magnetic resonance imaging scans of women’s brains as they sipped milkshakes. The results of the studies supported the claim that fatty and processed foods can be addictive.

In the milkshake study, pictures of milkshakes lit up the same regions in the brain that become hyperactive in alcoholics when they are anticipating a drink.  The rats consuming the quantity of sugar in a soda experienced anxiety, shakes and tremors, and other symptoms of addiction withdrawal when the effect of the sugar was blocked with a drug.

The researchers hope to use the findings to create treatments that interfere with pathological food preferences. For instance, to treat ice cream addiction, they might want to create a treatment to block interest in ice cream, but one that doesn’t interfere with interest in meat.

To learn more about how fatty, sugary and processed foods affect our moods, read the blog post in its entirety at Doctors Of Weight Loss.