A recent study by Joseph Schroeder at Connecticut College suggests that Oreos are as addictive as drugs of abuse, at least for rats. The study showed that both Oreos and cocaine seem to light up the nucleus accumbens or pleasure center in the rat’s brains to an equal degree. This implies, but does not prove, that they may be equally “addictive”. They actually measured these effects in two different groups compared to a control substance, so they were never tested head-to-head. For the Oreo study they used rice cakes as a control. I know a few folks who seem to be addicted to this sort of food, so I’m not sure it’s valid control.
Addiction is Complex
It’s also important to point out that addiction is a complex phenomenon that involves more than a kick in your pleasure center. If you give cocaine to 100 people, only 1% will go on to be heavy users and about 20% will end up fitting the description of being addicted. The rest might temporarily have their pleasure centers lite up, but for some reason they don’t travel any further down the road to addiction. They try it a few times and then leave it alone.
If you give 100 people Oreo cookies, most will not fit the definition of being addicted, at least not right away. Sure, their pleasure center might get a little zing, but that’s not the same as being addicted. There’s one important difference between cocaine and Oreos. Using cocaine is an expensive and illegal habit, so regular use is problematic for many people. Eating processed food like Oreos is not expensive and this type of fake food is available to everyone 24/7. If you repeatedly give people cocaine or Oreos, a lot more of them will meet the definition of being addicted. Because most Americans eat a lot of processed foods, we likely have a lot of junk food addicts on our hands.
The Meaning of Craving
The real question is why repeated exposure to this type of food leads to craving the food, binging and excessive consumption in so many people. Simply calling it “food addiction” doesn’t do it justice in my opinion. I see patients every day who have strong cravings for this type of food, regardless of whether or not they actually give into these cravings. In my opinion the crucial issue isn’t the fact that your pleasure center lights up when you eat this type of food—this happens to virtually all of us. Just because a food gives you pleasure doesn’t necessarily mean you crave it. That tends to come much later. I focus on the cravings because that’s where the money is when it comes to brain function.
The rats in this study ate Oreos on one side of the cage and rice cakes on the other side and they ended up spending more time on the Oreo side of the cage. Does this mean they craved them? I don’t think so. It simply means that when you give a hungry rat a choice between rice cakes and Oreos, they will choose Oreos. Oreos have the right combination of sugar, highly refined grains and fat to attract attention through “mouth feel”, taste buds and of course the pleasure center. Liking something because of these factors is a different experience than craving them. When you crave something, you will do everything in your power to gain access to it. Once you have gained access, you will consume the food until you drop over. Liking is normal, craving is pathological. As a physician I focus on pathological.
When I see patients with cravings, I also see a lot of other stuff. They tend to have a long list of brain dysfunction symptoms that challenge their ability to function in the real world. They have trouble concentrating and focusing, poor impulse control, mental and physical fatigue, mood swings, excessive anxiety, poor sleep and they constantly think about food and eating. They also tend to have a lot of metabolic problems like insulin resistance, obesity and type II diabetes. In other words they never crave in isolation. Cravings for sweet and starchy foods are the canary in the coalmine when it comes to brain function. These cravings are likely hardwired into our brains from evolutionary times when dropping glucose levels mandated that we preferably eat a carbohydrate, the quickest way to restore glucose levels. In today’s world this signal has been kidnapped by processed foods.
A New Disease Model
Fats can also be used for energy when they are broken down into ketones, and primitive man likely also had cravings for fat when cells needed more energy. In today’s world we have removed ketones as an issue, because most people consume diets high in sugar and highly refined carbohydrates, so their body is not adapted to using ketones for energy. Their body and brain wants an Oreo cookie. When people are glucose adapted from eating a lot of processed food, cravings for sweet and starchy foods are inevitable. Eating this food results in a further decline in brain function until a person enters the world of having a brain disorder caused by eating processed food—Carbohydrate Associate Reversible Brain syndrome or CARB syndrome.
We now know that these cravings are pathological and a sign of brain dysfunction. Liking an Oreo is OK, but craving one is not. The sad part of the story is if you continue eating them, you also continue to fry your brain. It’s a rather startling revelation that eating processed food can permanently change your brain for the worse, yet this appears to be the case. David Perlmutter makes this case in his excellent book “Grain Brain”. The CARB syndrome concept takes it to the next level and proposes that eating processed food can cause a disease that never existed until we changed our diet—CARB syndrome, a truly scary proposition.
Follow Your Cravings
The take home message is that if you are craving sweet and starchy foods, your brain is already headed down the pathway towards illness and poor quality of life. Unlike the rats in this experiment, when you have CARB syndrome you crave rather than just like fake food like Oreos because you have a progressive brain disorder. Trust me, it’s not a good place to spend your time, because you now have a lot more to worry about than just craving junk food. Sooner or later you will likely develop many of the 22 symptoms of CARB syndrome, significantly impairing your ability to function in the real world. Your metabolic health will also head south, making you vulnerable to a long list of down stream chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease strokes and cancer.
Unlike the rats in this experiment, you do have a choice. If your brain function is still good (no CARB syndrome), then you won’t crave fake food like Oreos, so it’s relatively easy to avoid eating processed food when you understand the dangers of doing so. If you do experience cravings for sweet and starchy foods, the cardinal symptom of CARB syndrome, you need to focus on suppressing these cravings. If you fail to do so, these cravings will continually push you to eat the very type of food that is frying your brain. Once you manage to stay away from this type of food the cravings tend to subside.
Suppress the Cravings for Better Health
One way to push back against these cravings is to take the amino acid L-glutamine 1,000 mg 3x daily on an empty stomach. John Briffa also recommends this supplement in his book “Waist Disposal” and James Mercola also does so in his book “The No-Grain Diet”. I have also recommended this supplement to my patients for many years because it is relatively safe and cheap. Chromium picolinate and saffron also help to control these pesky cravings. For years I have recommended a neurotransmitter precursor product called CARB-22 that contains L-tyrosine and 5-htp in a ratio of 10 to 1. This type of supplement can also help suppress all the symptoms of CARB syndrome. L-carnosine and acetyl-L-carnitine are also useful adjunct supplements for reducing cravings.
Remember that these cravings are a window into your brain function. If you have them, then it’s a definite sign that your brain and metabolism are heading in the wrong direction. If the cravings are getting better, keep doing what you are doing because you are heading in the right direction. It’s also important to remember that these supplements won’t do much good if you don’t change your diet. It is critical to reduce your consumption of processed foods, the primary trigger of CARB syndrome. One of the best ways to do so is to adopt a Paleo style diet as outlined by Loren Cordain in his book “The Paleo Answer” or Robb Wolf in his book “The Paleo Solution”. I also like medical student Brent Pottenger’s N = 1 approach to diet and health. He makes the point that each of us knows our body better than anyone else, so we need to pay attention to how lifestyle changes affect us. I agree with this approach. In my experience people who “feel better” when they try an intervention are on the right track. It respects our genetic differences and the fact that what works for one person might not work for another.
Focus on the Food
Some people with significant metabolic and brain problems will benefit from a low carbohydrate, high fat ketogenic diet. This diet was originally developed to treat seizures, but now it is being used to treat a broad range of brain disorders. Jimmy Moore is the master of this approach. David Perlmutter also endorses this approach with many of his patients.
Yes indeed, when rats and humans are exposed to fake food like Oreo cookies they tend to eat the creamy inside first. When they do so, in my opinion it’s a sign of deteriorating brain function. The bottom line is, if you want to be healthy, you need to stay away from this type of toxic food. Your brain and metabolism will thank you for it.