Ultra-processed foods as addictive as tobacco, warns study

10 Nov 2022 --- Heavily marketable processed foods like potato chips, cookies, ice cream and French fries meet the same criteria used for decades to demonstrate the addictive qualities of smoking tobacco, notes a new study. “Unnaturally high doses” of refined carbohydrates and fat appears to be key to their addictive potential.

“It is time to stop thinking about highly processed foods just as food, but instead as highly refined substances that can be addictive,” says Alexandra DiFeliceantonio, assistant professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech.

Researchers at the University of Michigan and Virginia Tech in the US carried out the research which is published in Addiction journal.

Addictive as tobacco?
The study’s findings considered the same question scientists used in the 1980s to determine whether tobacco is addictive. According to the research, highly processed foods:

• Trigger compulsive use where people are unable to quit or cut down (even in the face of life-threatening diseases like diabetes and heart disease).
• They can change the way we feel and cause changes in the brain that are of a similar magnitude as the nicotine in tobacco products.
• They are highly reinforcing.
• They trigger intense urges and cravings.

“Of note, there is no biomarker in the brain that tells us whether something is addictive or not,” underscores Ashley Gearhardt, University of Michigan professor of psychology.

“Identifying that tobacco products were addictive really boiled down to these four criteria, (which) have stood up to decades of scientific evaluation.” Gearhardt notes that highly processed foods meet every one of these criteria. 

The ability of highly processed foods to deliver in a fast manner unnaturally high doses of refined carbohydrates and fat appears to be key to their addictive potential. Why are processed foods addictive?
DiFeliceantonio explains that the ability of highly processed foods to deliver in a fast manner “unnaturally high doses” of refined carbohydrates and fat appears to be key to their addictive potential. 

“Highly processed foods contain complex substances that cannot be simplified to a single chemical agent acting through a specific central mechanism. The same can be said for industrial tobacco products, which contain thousands of chemicals, including nicotine,” adds Gearhardt.

In a previous study, Gearhardt linked highly processed foods to addictive eating using a clinical study in humans. Moreover, addiction is a greater problem for people with higher body mass indexes.

Resistance to change
The researchers explain that when the 1988 report on tobacco was released – 34 years ago – tobacco was the most significant cause of preventable death. However, the industry kept denying the addictive and harmful nature of cigarettes. 

“This delayed the implementation of effective strategies to address this public health crisis, which cost millions of lives,” highlights Gearhardt.

“When we realized tobacco products were addictive, it made us realize that smoking wasn’t just an adult choice, but that people were getting hooked and couldn’t stop even when they really wanted to. This same thing appears to be happening with highly processed foods and this is particularly concerning because kids are a major target of advertising for these products,” she continues.

Gearhardt notes that the number of preventable deaths from processed foods and obesity is on par with that of cigarettes. 

The World Health Organization warned this year that obesity at the EU level has reached “epidemic proportions” across country borders, as 59% of adults and nearly one in three children in Europe are overweight or obese.

“Similar to tobacco products, the food industry designs their highly processed foods to be intensely rewarding and hard to resist,” explains the study.

Ubiquitous foodsGearhardt notes that the number of preventable deaths from processed foods and obesity is on par with that of cigarettes. 
In an interview with NutritionInsight, Joan Ifland, Doctor of addictive nutrition, explained that processed food addiction is conditioned, working from cues like any other addiction.

“For example, one time you may have eaten a gooey cake on a particular park bench, and walking past it at a later date may alight your cue for some processed foods. Call it a cue, reminder or an association – it is there.”

Explaining that you don’t need to eat a food to trigger the cue, it can be environmental. 

“If you eat clean in the US, you are on the outside. Everywhere you go there is fast food, convenience stores open 24/7. Our culture is processed and many people are addicted. So, if you want to eat clean you can feel outside the ‘normal’ tribe: this is a scary place for people.”

Meanwhile, in the UK, Oxford University Press revealed this year that there is an “exorbitant” amount of junk food on reality TV, which normalizes junk food consumption and disproportionately affects younger people. 

Furthermore, short-lived Truss’ government delayed the ban on junk food TV advertising before 9 pm until 2024.

Fighting obesity from an early age is paramount, according to a study by SWEET, which revealed that children who have obesity are more likely to remain obese.

By Marc Cervera