A diet of sausages, chips, burgers and cake programme your brain to crave more foods which are high in fat, sugar and salt, so says new research.
For over a decade such junk foods have become a substitute for happiness and some bingers have become addicted.
Dr Paul Kenny, a neuroscientist, who undertook the research, affirms that salt is a mood enhancer. Through his research he has highlighted how dangerous high sugar and high fat can be to our health .
Once you get the craving for a lot of salt or a lot of fat, you crave more, that is, you become addicted.
The researchers consider that this is one of the first studies to suggest that brains may react in the same way to junk food as to drugs.
Hitherto, this is the most complete evidence which suggests that obesity and drug addiction share related neuro-biological foundation.
Dr Kenny, whose research commenced at Guy’s Hospital, London, and who now works at Florida’s Scripps Research Institute, divided rats into three groups for the research.
One group of rats were fed normal amounts of healthy food; another lot were fed small amounts of junk food, with the third group being fed unlimited amounts of junk, such as, fatty meat products, sponge cakes, cheesecake and chocolate snacks.
The first two groups did not experience any adverse effects of their diets . However, the rats who ate as much junk food as they wished rapidly got fat and began bingeing.
Upon researchers electronically stimulating the part of the brain that experiences pleasure, they discovered that the rats on unlimited junk food needed more and more stimulation to register the same level of pleasure as the animals on healthier diets.
