Why Oreos Are As Addictive As Cocaine To Your Brain

[Don Crack]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2013/10/16/why-your-brain-treats-oreos-like-a-drug/?utm_campaign=forbestwittersf&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

[Thizz]

Sorry but nothing is addictive.

 

You have a choice between doing something and not if you end up dependent on said thing that is your own fault.

 

/

 

Oreo's are overrated anyway.

[Don Crack]

Sorry but nothing is addictive.

 

You have a choice between doing something and not if you end up dependent on said thing that is your own fault.

 

/

 

Oreo's are overrated anyway.

 

Well eating is addictive but people are unaware of it thats why we have too many fat people

[Thizz]

Eating is a choice no one forces you to eat loads.

[Don Crack]

Eating is a choice no one forces you to eat loads.

 

Like i said, tell that to all the fat people in the UK

[Mame Biram Diouf]

Eating is a choice no one forces you to eat loads.

 

Like i said, tell that to all the fat people in the UK

 

If they REALLY wanted to stop they would stop imo

[Thizz]

They have made that choice pal.

 

If I drink strawberry milkshake enough daily I will eventually become addicted.

This was my choice.

 

Exactly the same as over eating.

[Lieutenant]

Addiction is a word for the weak

[Heero Yuy]

Of course certain things are addictive, what you're talking about is where the responsibility lies which of course is with the individual.

[Nidge Weasle]

Good post

[Kuffir]

crack isnt addictive ?

[Don Crack]

Addiction is an unconscious habit. Is your consciousness turned on knowing this greasy burger is bad for you?

[Kuffir]

what about b

 

no side effects nah

[Lens]

@ Thizzle Kicks, google withdrawal symptoms. pay special attention to those pertaining to heroine

 

when Your body becomes sick and eventually dies if You withdraw a substance, yeah, You have a choice not to take it but it's in no way easy, can't come with them bars there

/

I've had oreos, then decided I didn't want more. I've had oreos on many occasions, I don't feel an urge to have them ever, nor do I get withdrawal symptoms.

 

trying to legitimise that tax on fat food, thinking we're idiots

[Afroman]

Eating is a choice no one forces you to eat loads.

Like i said, tell that to all the fat people in the UK

Not every fat person eats loads

[Thizz]

@ Thizzle Kicks, google withdrawal symptoms. pay special attention to those pertaining to heroine

 

when Your body becomes sick and eventually dies if You withdraw a substance, yeah, You have a choice not to take it but it's in no way easy, can't come with them bars there

 

Bro I've just quit smoking cigarettes cold turkey.

 

I can hear you on this withdrawal stuff.

 

But no one forces you to keep smoking/injecting heroin that's a personal choice.

[The Somalian]

I am scared to take heroin or crack because of the effect I have seen it had on people.

 

But I had to attend this drug and alcohol rehab course, Talking to some of the ex Heroin addicts talk about their experience after giving up is mad. One guy has not used in around 5 years. He said he still gets craving for that shit til today. He said its hard to explain but said his veins has a constant pinching feeling.

 

I have had withdrawal symptoms from cocaine but that was problems with sleeping and hallucinating and went after 8 days, would not even say I get cravings for cocaine.

 

Alcohol withdraws I start to sweat out loads and get shakes on one side of my body what you cant control. I later found out what was happening was that I was having fits  and that I should of went hospital as I could of died. With alcohol my body still gets cravings for it, but I use haribo sweets as a substitute,  found out this was quite a common thing something to do with the sugar. The cravings are not that often maybe once or twice a week.

[Don Crack]

Yea alcohol fucks up your nervous system (Hense the shakes). Eat foods that regenerate the nervous system (Fruits)

[Yuri]

@ Thizzle Kicks, google withdrawal symptoms. pay special attention to those pertaining to heroine

 

when Your body becomes sick and eventually dies if You withdraw a substance, yeah, You have a choice not to take it but it's in no way easy, can't come with them bars there

 

Bro I've just quit smoking cigarettes cold turkey.

 

I can hear you on this withdrawal stuff.

 

But no one forces you to keep smoking/injecting heroin that's a personal choice.

agree with you

 

but doesnt mean that they aren't checmically addictive.

[Rippy]

Here's how the experiment, which has not been peer reviewed and has not been presented yet, went down. Mice were placed in a maze, with one end holding an Oreo and the other end holding a rice cake. The mice, without fail, decided to eat the Oreo over the rice cake, proving once and for all that mice like cookies better than tasteless discs with a styrofoamy texture.

"Just like humans, rats don't seem to get much pleasure out of eating them," one of the researchers said in a press release, the same press release that says "Connecticut College students and a professor of neuroscience have found 'America's favorite cookie' is just as addictive as cocaine." 

To be fair, it's not clear if the wild overselling of the research is on the part of the researchers or the people who wrote the press release. I've reached out to both the communications team at Connecticut College and the researchers involved, and will update when I hear back.

But back to the study: As a control, they did the same experiment, this time substituting an Oreo with an injection of cocaine or morphine and the rice cake with a shot of saline. Shockingly, the mice preferred "drug," to "not drug."

 

"I think that a study like this can be devastating with respect to public understanding of what addiction is and what it's not," Erickson said. "First of all, there's no science behind food being addicting in spite of what general public feels. Reporters often publish this sensationalism trying to get people to think you can be addicted to lingerie, to food, to a cell phone, to the tanning booth."

Medically speaking, "addiction" is never mentioned in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (which is still the most commonly used mental health classification system, after the release of the fifth edition was met with controversy). 

"DSM-IV never uses the word addiction. What it does do is describe chemical dependence. Even problem gambling is not called an addiction, it's called compulsive gambling disorder, but there's no doubt there's people who have trouble with gambling," Erickson said. "There's just no reason to call it addiction." 

What then, of the finding that Oreos "activated significantly more neurons than cocaine or morphine?" That claim is like comparing apples and ... doing a line. They have different mechanisms of action, and just because something "activates more neurons" doesn't mean it's more addictive. You can stop eating Oreos with no physical symptoms. You can eat a Nilla Wafer instead if you really want to. But you can't go from drinking two handles of vodka a day to drinking orange juice.

"Dependency is essentially when you can't stop using the drug without help," he said. "Preferring Oreos over rice cakes isn't a brain disease."

Of course, the students at Connecticut College aren't solely to blame for all of this. There have been dozens of studies comparing the addictiveness of random things (power! corn syrup!) to cocaine. And Motherboard is guilty, too, although we've tried to avoid saying users develop a chemical dependence to Facebook—at least with a straight face.

It's buzzy and sensational to call things as "addictive as cocaine," and it's a hell of a good way to get your study noticed by news outlets. But addiction researchers are split on how to even define how "addictive" a substance is. That's one of the reasons the word is never classified in DSM-IV.

"Is it how hard a drug grabs people? Is it the percentage who develop a habit? Is it how dangerous it is?" Erickson said. 

He's developed his own measure for it: The percentage of people who will develop the disease of dependency, based on the DSM-IV guidelines, if they use a drug. By that measure, if scientists want to make headlines, they should be comparing the addictiveness of that

or that delicious ramen place on the corner to nicotine, not cocaine.

"According to that, the most chemically addictive is nicotine because one third of people who use it during their lifetime will develop dependency," he said. "For cocaine, it's 20 percent. For heroin, it's 23 percent."

[weneverwherever]

heroin is addictive fact whether your smoking or injecting it. fat people have a eating disorder being an addiction its in there genes

[Woodpecker]

lol

[kurious]

but oreos have the same affect as pringles and strawberry fruitellas, some foods just have no end

[Woodpecker]

no end in damage they will cause you and your child

well actually, death'll be pretty finite.

[kurious]

i dont eat them now apart from pringles

but when i did a whole pack could easily go in one sitting