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In a study published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, Ashley Gearhardt of Yale University and her colleagues found that the addictive nature of many junk foods is literally the same as the addictive nature of drugs.

The team studied the brains of a group of 48 young women, who were tempted with either a chocolate milkshake or a tasteless beverage solution. Based on data gathered using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the team discovered that the women’s anterior cingulate cortex and the medial orbitofrontal cortex – two areas of the brain known to respond to drug addiction – both responded to sensory cravings for the milkshake, regardless of the women’s weight.

“If certain foods are addictive, this may partially explain the difficulty people experience in achieving sustainable weight loss,” said Gearhardt. “These findings support the theory that compulsive food consumption may be driven in part by an enhanced anticipation of the rewarding properties of food.”

These “rewarding properties,” however, lie primarily in junk food chemicals. Many processed junk foods are loaded with flavor enhancing chemicals like monosodium glutamate (MSG), high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), and aspartame (chemical sugar), all of which are known to be highly-addictive.

Resource: www.naturalnews.com/032255_junk_food_drug_addiction.html