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Velvet Ice Cream
Sure, Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream tastes so good it’s addictive, but is it, you know, addictive? Could Ben and Jerry, Häagen Dazs, or Blue Bell really be pushers of a substance akin to nicotine?
Baskin-Robbins-as-crack-house might seem ridiculous, and the idea that any food can be addictive in the scientific sense is still controversial. But, broadly speaking, as far as the brain’s circuitry is concerned, pleasure is pleasure. Activation patterns often look about the same.
Now new research shows that ice cream and drugs may share something else in common.
With drugs, over time, addicts feel less and less pleasure, though they crave more and more. This effect has been linked to a lowered density of specific versions of cellular receptors for the brain chemical dopamine. It’s as if constant stimulation has blunted the ability to enjoy.
When researchers Kyle S. Burger and Eric Stice, of the Oregon Research Institute, fed kids real chocolate milkshakes (made with Häagen Dazs) while the kids’ brains were being scanned, they found a similar effect.
In a study published online last week by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Burger and Stice first surveyed the 151 adolescents, all of them of healthy weight, about their recent eating habits and how much they craved certain foods. Then they scanned them in an fMRI machine while showing them a cartoon of a milkshake, to measure craving, followed by the real shake.
All the kids wanted the shake, but those who ate the most ice cream over the previous few weeks enjoyed it less, as reflected in lowered activity in reward centers.
It’s as if the brains of big ice cream eaters had been changed, Burger said. "Over consumption of these foods down regulates reward processes," he explained. "That may, in turn, make you eat more," in an effort to feel the same pleasure you once did. "You could be continually tying to match the earlier experience," he said, taking bigger and bigger portions, and gaining more and more weight.
Importantly, these kids weren’t fat. That means that the brain changes Burger believes are at work happen before obesity sets in.
"Hyper-rewarding foods cause changes in the brain akin to what we see with tobacco and alcohol. ... That is food addiction,"insisted Ashley Gearhardt, a Yale psychology PhD candidate who has also conducted research using milkshakes. (Solid ice cream can’t be fed to a subject in an fMRI.) She admitted the case for food addiction "is not open and shut," but, she said, "our food environment preys on people" by manufacturing food "designed to amp up reward" and vulnerable people can become addicts.
Burger isn’t so sure. "I personally do not say food is addictive. I say energy-dense food, high sugar food, can elicit neural responses during consumption that parallel those seen in drug addiction. So it has addictive-like properties."
That may seem a difference without a purpose, but true addiction is more complicated than diminished reward in the face of high craving. Until more is learned, enjoy -- a little -- of that Super Fudge Chunk.
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Dairy is quite addictive. Think I'm crazy? Try not eating it for a week and see how long you last - especially cheese. It isn't a question of self control either - just about every other food is no problem to kick - meat, eggs, bread, sugar, chips - dairy is in a class of it's own.
Big Trouble - that just works for you and your brain. I hate milk. It makes me gag. I eat Greek yogurt as a source of calcium, but would gladly skip it if I could. Cheese? No problem. I can take it or leave it, depending on the type and quality. Ice cream? It's like cheese. Most brands are not of high enough quality to bother consuming due to the high calorie content. The only cheeses and ice creams that I'll waste the calories on are made by hand at a local deli, and the prices are enough to dissuade any cravings.
I like dairy, but could get by pretty easily without it. Sugar, now THAT's a hard habit to kick!
This is BS! Just another way for people to cop out and say "See, it isn't me! I'm not weak! It's not that I can't control my urges! It's an addiction! It's a disease! Bullsh*t! Plain as simple! Next thing you'll see is people wanting it added to the LONG list of "addictions" (read made up excuses) and get ADA "permission" to be fat. Nobody is forcing it on you! Push yourself away from the table! Give me a break!
Now String Cheese is addicting, but the only ice cream I'm addicted to is the Thifty hard packed kind from 1982! I'm all up in arms that it's basically disappeared as an option! All this soft serve stuff is a joke. Häagen Dazs is the next best thing.
Legalize and tax it! Taxing ice cream will solve our budget woes.
that is the worst idea i have ever heard do you work at a fast food shop
Big Trouble
You know, I think you're right! I did a cleanse diet for a few months & figured I'd crave the carbs I so loved.... nope! What got me was cheese! I really, really needed a hunk of cheese. lol
Vegans can be nuts some time. There is nothing wrong with indulging in some ice cream here and there. If you saw all the studies for and against dairy, your head might spin. People who have agendas often are the ones who pay for the studies. Often, you get the results you pay for.
Either way, ice cream and cheese are some of the best foods ever made. I will never give them up if I have any choice at all in the matter.
Hopefully, you will survive your heart attack and be able to rethink "ice cream and cheese are some of the best foods ever made."
What a stupid remark. We have moderate amounts of ice cream and cheese all the time in my family and there is no heart disease or heart attacks or diabetes or anything else for that matter. And they are some of the best foods ever made, maybe if you tried a little you wouldn't be so cranky.
Interesting study, but it would have been better if they had a control group using a different food that is also considered a treat, such as chips or candy, and a food that is not seen as a treat, such a broccoli. In other words, is it the ice cream itself or the fact that it is seen as a treat? Would this also apply to cookies or candy or pizza?
I'd be curious to see too, if other foods caused activation in the same centers (eating anything at all can be pleasurable.) The problem is that in the fMRI machine, they must be held completely still, and can't chew. We'd need to blend the food and feed it through a similar staw apparatus, which in my opinion could confound the whole thing, since sucking pizza or broccoli through a straw might be offputting, to say the least.
this is the subtle way that the nanny state is getting us ready to accept the government to come in and regulate HOW much sugar we are going to consume. Theyare already starting to regulate what kids bring for school lunchs from home-
sue - You are a nutcase. Where does it state anywhere in this article that the study was done in an attempt to regulate how much sugar, ice cream, fat, sodas or anything else that we consume? As for regulating what kids bring from home for lunch, that is mostly an attempt to prevent peanut products from entering the school due to allergic reactions that some kids have to them. Your little darlings are still free so bring as many sugar-laden, processed junk food items to school for lunch as they want.
Sounds like Sue is a little self-conscious, and maybe a little paranoid too.
In Sue's defence, I agree with her. Some school's are already monitoring what children bring to school. Just as peanut allergies are a medical condintion, so is obiesity, blood clots and diabities! Which all stem from fat children. And no, Sue is not a little paranoid. OneVoice, your just being mean in saying, she is self-conscious. Look around you, open your eyes. There are more fat people walking around now, than when I was a kid. That was 30yrs ago. I still remember. The government is even talking about preventing people from buying certain sweets with food-stamps. Ice cream, cakes, and cookies, are cheap and addicting. It's a fact!! Scales----Do you have children with peanut allergies or do you have fat children? You sound defensive?? And angry!!!
Google the Yale Food Addiction Scale. They have found that any number of foods, especially sugar, are actually physically addictive in the same way that drugs are. I noticed this effect in my daughter-in-law. She is from Thailand and had never been exposed to a lot of refined sugar. At first she was grossed out by how sweet our diet is, but years later it's like she can't get enough sugary foods. In the light of recent studies using standard scales for addiction applied to foods, it makes a lot of sense. She doesn't really enjoy the food but she feels an irrational compulsion to eat it in dangerous quantities anyway, and her health is suffering for it.
I know! It's so similar stopping Pixie Stix as it is kicking a heroin habit.
Get her some 5-HTP capsules - it may help break the cycle. My wife used to eat a lot of sweets, but since taking the 5-HTP she has fewer cravings and eats fewer sweets.
All I want to know is how much the researchers were paid to do these studies. From a lifetime of experience of being addicted to chocolate, cookies, cake, and ice cream, I could have told them the same thing, and I would have charged a lot less.
I hate how people throw around the word "addiction." Addiction is a disease. Withdrawal from alcohol can actually kill you.
The thing is, they throw words like "addiction" and "disorder" around these days, because then it lifts the burden of responsibility from the individual -- It's not his fault, he has a disease. It's not her fault, she has a disease.
Some foods might be tasty, and you might crave them, but it's a far cry from being a heroin addict.
I second that. Instead of researching and writing stories we have to create snazzy headlines and outrageous content to sell the story.
There are certain foods that I absolutely love but I'm not addicted to any of them. I absolutely love a great Thanksgiving dinner but I have it once a year. I love pizza, ice cream, pasta, steak, seafood....yet I am not heading out to the grocery store at 3am because I need my fix.
I did a study just last week. Did you know that every living creature that walks this planet is addicted to breathing? Get this, I found out they do it all the time, even when they are sleeping. It boggles the mind.
I've never met anyone that would take money for favors for some ice cream. People don't neglect their families to eat ice cream.
Haagen Daz Coffee ice cream ... I could main line it .
Yes ice cream can be addictive . MMMMM MMMMMM
Haagen Daz Swiss vanilla almond. Portion control? What portion control. A container full at a sitting.
Sugary foods boost serotonin in the short term, but tend to depress serotonin production in the longer term. Serotonin makes you feel good, so we eat more sugar to get that feeling back.
Certain amino acid supplements, like 5-HTP, boost serotonin production and can help reduce cravings for sweets, as well as other addictive substances.
Modern medicine has defined "addiction" so broadly as to strip the word of any meaning. This enables politicians and law enforcement bureaucrats to bandy around nonsensical terms like "marijuana addiction", which doesn't exist. "Addiction" should be reserved for real physiological addiction, wherein the user suffers serious physical withdrawal symptoms upon cessation of use, not just that they wish they had a joint, or that they experience mild "tolerance", simply meaning they need a little more of the substance to get an effect than when they first used it.
Also, a nutritionist named Burger. Funny.
Sugar & carbs. not a little addictive. Addictive, period. I have been trying to get out of this addiction for the better part of 35 years. Don't tell me sugar/carb addiction is "controversial" B.S.! Do some real research. There are millions out there just like me. Only answer: don't go near it - ever.
You`re absolutely right.
And the cause of the obesity epidemic, processed carbs.
My kind of addiction!!! Where's the line form?!?!?!
I think it’s a little more complicated than outlined in this article. As a practicing physician with an interest in neuroscience, especially the interface between food and brain function, we have known for years that sugar has some addictive properties.
As it turns out, excessive fructose primarily from sugar and HFCS is the primary driver behind insulin resistance where cells no longer respond very well to insulin when carbohydrates are consumed. Once a person has insulin resistance and they consume high glycemic carbohydrates like refined grains, their brain is subjected to magnified glucose spikes. Because glucose in high dose is toxic to nerve cells, over time these glucose spikes trigger a chronic brain disorder where cells become depleted of monoamine neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine. When this happens it take more ice cream to push the reward neurotransmitter dopamine out of cells.
What’s worse is when you deplete all of these key neurotransmitters, you end up with a long list of brain dysfunction symptoms that eventually quality you for conditions like depression, ADHD, PTSD, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, bipolar II, fibromyalgia, IBS, autism and other conditions.
We call this disease Carbohydrate Associated Reversible Brain syndrome or CARB syndrome. Because the brain plays a key role in auto-regulating fat stores, people with CARB syndrome end up storing extra fat at any caloric intake. Excessive body fat and a brain that doesn’t work so well—does this sound like anyone you know? If so, they have a treatable brain disease.
Whose your first patient? Homer Simpson?
I do like it how you were able to get the acronym down to CARB! Very chic! Tell me are all MDs like you enablers too? These days nobody wants to be told NO don't do that it's BAD for you! And you provide the avenue for escape. Nice Work!
oh noooo....they'll end up banning ice cream! noooo! i do not want to buy my ice cream from the mexican drug cartels!!!!! time to start learning how to grow...uhh, i mean make, my own!
Buy your cows now, before the feds start regulating it...
Have a meal at the Heart Attack Grill, some ice cream and go outside and have a smoke. ahhhhhh that's living.
I'm addicted!
Read Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs.
Self serving farmers are addicted to stuffing their animals with antibiotics thus stuffing our bodies with them when we consume meat/eggs/dairy. When will we force the useless FDA to stop this madness??
Tell Congress: Keep antibiotics working by passing the "Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act"
The rise of “superbugs,” germs that are immune to the drugs we rely on to fight off infections, is a huge public health concern. Yet, almost 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. end up in animal agriculture, where most are fed to healthy animals to promote faster growth and keep the animals healthy in overcrowded feedlots. Many of the antibiotics used in animal agriculture are also important in human medicine and decades of research has shown that daily dosing of healthy food animals with antibiotics is a major reason for the rise in drug-resistant bacteria.
We need your help to pass legislation that could put a stop to overuse of drugs that are important to human health! Please send a message to your Representative and Senators asking them to support the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act.
Well human beings are hard wired to crave sugar (that is only fuel source for the brain) so essentially nature designed us to be addicted to sugar, so getting addicted to ice cream is a high probability.
I am Addicted to Ice Cream in the Summer... So they are right about the addiction.
I would like to see the use of the word "addiction" banned except when it refers to alcohol or drugs. People are not addicted to ice cream, the internet, cell phones, texting, football, music, or dogs. Wait, maybe I'd make an exception for dogs. Some people really do seem to be unable to go anywhere without their dogs, and even try to bring them to work with them.
So which is more addictive... ice cream or sex? And which is more dangerous??