Fast Food Can Stimulate As Much Pleasure As Heroin
July 9th, 2008Ever wondered why Happy Meals and other fast food in general never fail to bring a smile to your child’s face? That’s because fast food can stimulate as much pleasure as heroin can! Ann Kelley, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, the behavior of rats after the were given sweet, salty and fatty foods. She found a link between the brain’s pleasure chemicals and a craving for this type of food. She stimulated the rats’ brains with a synthetic version of the natural opioid enkephalin. This caused rats to eat up to six times their normal intake of fat. In addition, Dr Kelley identified long-lasting changes in rats’ brain chemistry - similar to those caused by extended use of morphine or heroin.