The recent increase in the use of GLP-1 weight loss drugs has brought addiction-related terms such as “cravings” and “cravings” into common parlance. But can food really be addictive? Now some neuroscientists and food behavior researchers are trying to understand whether food—especially ultraprocessed foods—can be as addictive as other known substances like cigarettes, alcohol, and cocaine.
To make foods potentially addictive, “they are made in a way that is the most delicious and the most delicious,” says appetite neuroscientist Alex DiFelicantonio of Virginia Tech. “When you look at the food environment, they are hyperprocessed.”
scientific American We spoke with DiFelicantonio about research revelations about whether food addiction is real, whether certain types of foods may have more addictive properties, and how to address related eating disorders.
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,An edited transcript of the interview follows.,
What does “food addiction” mean?
When we’re thinking about food addiction and qualitatively looking at what people are eating, when they’re saying they can’t stop eating, we have to put it within the framework of a substance use disorder. These disorders affect life in a destabilizing way. not addicted to food Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is like substance use disorder, but it is proposed to be placed in the DSM.
we usually see Yale Food Addiction Scale For clinical evaluation. The scale was designed to assess criteria similar to the substance use disorder criteria in the DSM. The scale also includes what we call clinical indicators that a person is experiencing symptoms of an addiction and that those symptoms are negatively affecting life – such as the ability to engage in social situations or engage in aspects of work or life. If we accept that food addiction exists – if you look at the Yale Food Addiction Scale and do large population-level studies in many countries internationally – we generally find that About 12 percent of people experience it,
A combination of factors can lead to addictive behavior. And the most common is the potential for addiction of the substance combined with the insecurity of the individual. We also think about both of those things with food: the ingredients that may have the potential to cause addiction and the people who may be most vulnerable. We also look at characteristics of the food, such as high refined carbohydrate content, which are known to trigger reward pathways in the brain.
Other aspects of substance-use-disorder criteria include loss of control over intake and excessive patterned intake. This is what we see in binge eating disorders. Binge eating disorder and food addiction are not the same thing, but they do have similarities. If we look at the foods that people report consuming while binge eating, they are things that would be classified as ultraprocessed – things like pizza, ice cream, candy, chips. They are very little things like fruits, nuts, beans.
What do you consider ultraprocessed food?
There are many definitions. I would say the one that has been studied the most and that we use in our lab is nova (“new” in Portuguese) definition; There are four levels, and the fourth is ultraprocessed foods.
NOVA level-four foods include ingredients or processing methods that are not available to home cooks. You can think of additives like stabilizers, cosmetic additives that add color or flavor, or emulsifiers to maintain texture. If you add vitamin D or calcium – which are types of nutritional fortifiers – it doesn’t make the food a Nova ultraprocessed food in itself. Ultraprocessed can also refer to foods produced by an industrial method, such as making a solution of starch, that is then extruded, puffed, subjected to high heat or molded in ways that you wouldn’t actually be able to make in your kitchen.
Why might ultraprocessed foods in particular activate reward pathways in the brain?
Current scientific thinking is that we have a reward system and there are lots of different things that can be rewarded. All addictive drugs increase dopamine in the striatum (a brain area beneath the cerebral cortex that is involved in motor and reward processing). This has been the dogma since 1988 (a paper by pharmacologists). Gaetano Di Chiara and Assunta Imperato)It’s the same thing (with certain foods), If you put sugar and fat into the oral cavity of an animal, you see an increase in dopamine, If you put these things directly into the intestines (of animals), you will also see increase in dopamineThere is no unanimous threshold in which we say that a substance that is addictive should increase dopamine in the striatum, x amount.
Modern ultraprocessed foods began becoming widespread in the US around the 1950s. Those foods are working on a reward system that has evolved to deal with natural rewards from the environment.
When we’re thinking about food addiction, we know that there are certain levers or ways to overactivate the reward system, and ultraprocessed foods access those levers the most. They increase the levels of sodium, fat and refined carbohydrates in the body. And this is assisted in various ways – with emulsifiers, with changes in texture, with changes in taste – making ultraprocessed foods the tastiest, most delicious. We don’t think of broccoli as an addictive substance; We think of foods that contain sufficient amounts of these potentially addictive nutrients to become addictive.
How might GLP-1 drugs like Vegovy and Ozempic affect?
We still need more data on this, but looking at what people report on GLP-1 drugs suggests that they feel less food noise. It is not surprising that the drug also works through other food-specific mechanisms, the satiety mechanism (or making people feel full). Some of the reduction is due to increased nausea and satiety, but the other aspect of it that we’re still understanding as an area is how much of it is driven by this change in the reward system.
you recently operated a little study On young adults aged 18 to 25 who consume a high ultraprocessed food diet. What changes did you notice in your eating habits?
I think what we found is really interesting. We conducted two trials: Participants consumed for two weeks either a diet that contained 81 percent of calories from ultraprocessed foods or zero percent of calories from ultraprocessed foods. All subjects ate both diets, which were nutritionally matched, with a four-week washout in between.
In one test, participants went to a buffet meal after each diet period and could eat as much as they wanted. We found that the older group (aged 21 to 25) ate no more following the ultraprocessed diet compared to the minimally processed diet. But the younger group consumed more at the buffet following the ultraprocessed diet than the other diets.
In another test, called the hunger absence test, participants were given a snack or time to play on their phones. Following the ultraprocessed diet, the younger participants also ate more. Therefore they were eating more even when they were not hungry. This is mindless snacking.
The study did not directly measure addictive behavior, but it shows how ultraprocessed food can alter behavior. We plan to publish a similar study exploring which foods can lead to addiction and what that looks like for different people.
Why might some people experience more addictive behaviors around ultraprocessed foods than others?
We know genetic variants that put people at greater risk for nicotine abuse or cocaine addiction; We know genetic forms of alcohol use disorder. But for food addiction we do not know this. I think where this field is right now, and where my lab really wants to progress, is understanding.
Why does “food addiction” provoke debate?
It’s really thorny. In the context of substance use disorders, we are moving from something you don’t have to do to survive to something you have to do to survive. You have to eat. So it’s really difficult to think and talk about food as an addiction.
One response I’ve heard is that we don’t want to exaggerate everything. But I think if about 12 percent of the population is telling you they have a problem, maybe we should look into it, or we should at least do some solid studies on it and determine what it is. People also say it’s a behavioral addiction—you’re not addicted to food as a substance; You are addicted to food. But that argument quickly falls apart when you look at what people are eating. If you are a food addict, you may be eating things that are hard or crunchy or that require a lot of effort to consume. And in fact it is not what we see. We see that people are losing control over the consumption of items that are high in fat and sugar-refined carbohydrates.
I also think there’s a lot of pushback that’s a moral bind – if you’re addicted to food, you’re a bad person. For the most part, many people have let it go. We understand that, for example, alcohol use disorder is not caused by a failure of willpower. (People with the disorder) can’t get over it and we have to help them. I’m always bringing that level of compassion to food addiction, too.
If ultraprocessed foods really are “addictive,” what are some treatments? How should those treatments be dealt with on a societal and individual level?
When someone has a substance use disorder, part of the treatment is to avoid the cues and context in which they use that substance. In our environment, how do we ask someone to stay away from food? This is impossible. People everywhere are concerned about food, especially ultraprocessed foods.
Addiction is social and behavioral. We decide which drugs are illegal. We decide at what age people will have access to potentially addictive substances. Artificial refinement of foods—so pure sugar, fat, combinations of fat and sugar that do not occur in nature—also activates our reward system. At what level is a rewarding substance something we are willing to regulate as a society?
You need to eat to survive, but you don’t need most ultraprocessed foods for human survival, food security, and national security. We to do Food has to be processed for national security reasons. We do not have goiter or rickets, because we fortify foods with essential micronutrients. Canned vegetables and frozen fruits are good for food safety, but you really don’t need to advertise overly sweet cereals to children. Those two different worlds can exist.
I feel like a lot of times it’s presented as “you’re taking away people’s food when you regulate it.” To quote Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “Drugs rob the brain of its ability to exercise free will.” We want to make decisions for our health and the health of our families. When we’re dealing with a drug, you no longer have control over that decision. This is where having a policy is important. You are not taking anything away; You’re putting up guardrails and helping people make informed decisions—because you can’t make informed decisions about the drugs you’re taking.
