Of Rats and Junk Food Junkies
It’s official. Junk food is almost as addictive as heroin! And no I’m not being provocative just for the hell of it. (Provocative therapists should never be gratuitously provocative.) No, the men in the white coats with bad news this time are neurobiologists, Dr Paul Johnson and Dr Paul Kenny. The Daily Telegraph reports today how cutting edge rat-based research begun by Johnson at Guys Hospital London and continued in better weather at Florida Scripps Research Unit has shown that ‘ brains may react in the same way to junk food as they do to drugs.’
Now let’s see what the Dr Pauls’ experiments on rats (a species with a huge overlap of DNA with humans as well as many other scientifically useful psychological similarities) tell us about addiction to Big Macs and other so-called junk food.
The long-toothed rodents were divided into three groups.
Group I: Normal amounts of health food.
Group II: Normal amounts of junk food (including ‘fatty meat products’ and ‘cheap’ (ie. Good value in the recession) ‘sponge cake.’ Yum-yum…
Group III: Same as II but in unlimited amounts.
The men in white coats found that the rats in Groups I and II were fine but Group III’s rats became binge eaters and quickly obese – addiction! In an important announcement, Kenny revealed that ‘this is the most complete evidence to date that suggests obesity and drug-addiction have common neuro-biological foundations.’
I call on readers to resist all calls for increased tax and EU health warnings (including photographs of fat children and fat rats) on all junk food!
The Australian doctor Ainsley Meares was wrong when he wrote in A Way of Doctoring:
We learned great truths
Before the age of statistics
And we sensed where to go
Without rats to lead us.
As a concerned MD specializing in Provocative Therapy, it is my duty to inform you that the rat has much to teach the human about survival in adverse conditions. In the interests of the survival of the human race, I urge you to be as RATional as possible in your eating habits.
Good News!: A McDonalds restaurant will open next month at The Louvre in Paris. Cheap, tasty and scientifically proven addictive American junk food and the Mona Lisa available at The International Temple of Fine Arts – that’s what I call choice. As a devoted supporter of The French Revolution (Liberté, égalité, fraternité!) and the Constitution of the USA (Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!) all I can say is: “I’m lovin’ it!”.
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Comments
1. This is not science. Where is the control for group 1? The rats could just be eating all the food available.
2. Animal experiments from thalimomide to Vioxx do not tell us what happens in humans, only what happens in that particular animal.
3. Promoting the flawed model of animal experimentation is not the way to advance knowledge of humans. You don’t test medicine for your horse on your sister. See for example
http://www.animalconsultants.org/consultants/knight_andrew.htm
The only way to know what happens in humans is to observe humans. In this case that is so easy.
4. We already know from observation of humans that McDonald’s food is addictive. Supersize Me is an amusing example of this.
We didn’t need 40 years of forcing beagles to smoke to make the obvious obvious, and we don’t need any more animals killed to make clear the obvious causes of obesity, diabetes type 2 and most heart disease that shorten the length and quality of life of over half the people in the rich world. Dr David Ryde, Britain’s lowest prescribing GP, told me that his non-smoking patients lived for around 80 to 90 years, but the meat-eaters would spend the last 10 or 15 years (depending on whether a man or a woman) in and out of his surgery, whereas the vegans would be in excellent health right to the end then go down quickly in the last few months. He cancelled a few heart bypass operations treating with diet alone. Now that is good medicine.
You make some good points Alex. I’ve only seen how this experiment referred to in the popular press but I do assume that there were controls. Saw Supersize Me and agree it illustrated if not proved that these foods are addictive. I’m interested in Dr Ryde’s observations though I have heard it said by a geriatric psychiatrist that ‘the reward for living a clean life is to become old and mad’. Interesting was his view that vegans LIVED LONGER and DIED QUICKLY. My work at the Nature Cure Clinic (only employed vegetarians and I now do eat meat) for 15 years would verify the first observation but I’m not sure about the latter. Interested to see stats on that.
I was heaertened to hear that McD’s are pulling out of Iceland, as it is ‘economically unviable’ for them to continue there since the crash. Lets All Go to Iceland!