Doctors and
researchers have suspected this for quite some time, but a study in rats
reported in the journal Neuroscience has found that over-consumption of high-calorie
food can trigger addiction-like responses in the brain, and that junk food can
turn rats into compulsive eaters in a laboratory setting. When the
researchers regularly offered rats a choice of high-calorie foods such as
bacon, sausage, cake, and chocolate in addition to their regular food choices,
the animals over-consumed calories and gained weight rapidly. The study
gets even more interesting, the team trained their rats to expect painful foot
shocks when seeing a light signal. Although normal rats stop eating even
the most delicious junk food when the light comes on, the obese rats used to
the high-calorie diet just keep feeding. The desire for junk food
overcame the fear of pain.
