Oreos are pretty popular as far as biscuit brands go, but could there be more to it than meets the eye (or tongue)? Well the Today.com reports of a scientific study, conducted by Joseph Schroeder and his research team from Connecticut College in New London, which likens the addictiveness of Oreos to Cocaine.
Extensive lab testing on rats showed that Oreos stimulated the same neurons in the brain’s “pleasure centre” as Cocaine did. Additionally they discovered that rats prefer to eat the cream part first, before eating the biscuit. They also noted that rats which were eating Oreos exhibited similar levels of addiction as rats which were hooked on Cocaine.
“Our research supports the theory that high-fat/ high-sugar foods stimulate the brain in the same way that drugs do,” neuroscience assistant professor Joseph Schroeder says. “That may be one reason people have trouble staying away from them and it may be contributing to the obesity epidemic…These findings suggest that high fat/sugar foods and drugs of abuse trigger brain addictive processes to the same degree and lend support to the hypothesis that maladaptive eating behaviours contributing to obesity can be compared to drug addiction.”
So next time you go to grab a packet of Oreos for yourself or your childen just stop to think that they aren’t so innocent after all!
Image courtesy of Wikimedia
great, another thing the govt will tell us we’re not allowed anymore.
Things don’t get banned because they are addictive, they get banned because the are harmful to others.
For example, cigarettes can cause cancer to the smoker and to those in proximity to the smoker. A lot of other drugs cause harm in the same way, or can cause violence ect. Oreos are not a harm to anyone, so they will not get banned as they are only addictive in the same way people get addictive to facebook etc.