Highly Processed Foods Linked to Food Addiction

There may be another reason that you might want to stick to healthy foods. Scientists have found that eating highly processed foods like chocolate, pizza and French fries can lead to addictive eating.

In this case, the researchers wanted to tackle the issue of "food addiction," which has become of growing interest to scientists and consumers in light ot the obesity epidemic. Previous research in animals revealed that highly processed foods may be capable of triggering addictive-like eating behavior. In addition, clinical studies in humans has witnessed that some individuals meet the criteria for substance dependence when the substance is food.

"If properties of some foods are associated with addictive eating for some people, this may impact nutrition guidelines, as well as public policy initiatives such as marketing these foods to children," said Erica Schulte, one of the researchers, in a news release.

The rearchers found that individuals with symptoms of food addiction or with higher body mass indexes reported greater problesm with highly prosessed foods.

"This is a first step towards identifying specific foods, and properties of food, which can trigger this addictive response," said Schulte. "This could help change the way we approach obesity treatment. It may not be a simple matter of 'cutting back' on simple foods, but rather, adopting methods used ot curtail smoking, drinking and drug use."

The researchers hope to conduct future studies to examine whether addictive foods are capable of triggering changes in brain circuitry and behavior like drugs of abuse.

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.

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