A REAL ADDICTION

There’s cigarette and alcohol addiction, and now researchers have found some people may in fact have junk-food addiction. Scientists believe consuming a lot of highly processed foods with high sugar and fat content may change the brain’s response to satiety that makes people continue to want more and more even when they are not hungry. As with any other addiction, they can’t get enough. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed rats given a regular diet for five days and then switched to a chocolate-flavored food high in sugar experienced anxiety and withdrawal symptoms when deprived of the sugary food, similar to people with alcohol or drug addictions.