Ever feel like you’re fighting a losing battle with a bag of potato chips? Your brain might be to blame. Foods with a high glycemic index (GI) activate the same area of the brain that’s triggered by gambling and addictive drugs, according to a recent study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
For the study, researchers fed 12 overweight or obese men milkshakes that were identical—except some were high-GI, while the others were low-GI. Four hours later, the people who ate the high-GI shakes were hungrier, had lower blood sugar levels, and had more activity in the area of the brain associated with cravings and addiction.
Eating junk food isn’t like gambling or taking drugs—so why does it have a similar effect on the brain? High-GI foods cause a spike then a plummet in blood sugar levels, says lead study author Belinda Lennerz, MD, PhD, a clinical fellow in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston. This rapid change triggers activity in the brain’s pleasure center, causing you to regain your appetite more quickly and give into your cravings more easily.
That doesn’t mean the food is necessarily addictive in the way that alcohol or cocaine are, though. While most addictive behaviors or substances aren’t essential for life, food is—with one caveat: “People actually eat for many other reasons apart from energy needs: for pleasure, out of frustration, to satisfy a craving,” says Lennerz. Behaviors like this, coupled with the increase in brain activity in the cravings control center, indicate that the risk of “food addiction” could potentially be real.
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