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Just a quick post. Found this other study on rats addicted to junk food.

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It was the last sentences and the first comment on this story that got my attention on this study of rats showing addictive behavior to junk food. The study shows that rats fed a diet rich in fat and calories will choose to eat that food preferentially and will become obese. Furthermore, the process resembles drug addiction in that the reward system in the rats’ brains requires more and more stimulus to achieve a reward state. Compare to the phenomenon of tolerance where an addict requires higher doses of the drug of choice to achieve the desired state of being high. Also, rats will continue to eat the rich food even when a light blinks that is warning them of an impending electrical shock. (They were “taught” this previously, by the way.)
What caught my eye towards the end was the speculation that energy-dense foods have not been part of our evolution and that they may be “corrupting” our brain chemistry. The first comment mentions an idea that we should really not be eating anything that wasn’t a food 100 years ago. Check out that article! Trying to explain the epidemic of obesity by genetic means is inadequate. Genes have not changed much in the last century. But what we consider food has changed a lot. High-fructose corn syrup, cheap oils with long shelf lives, preservatives, etc. Interesting idea. What would it be like to move in this direction?
But in regards to eating what our grandparents would not have recognized as food…mine were polish-russian immigrants. So I want a special dispensation that allows us to eat what anyone’s grandparents would have recognized as food. Like sushi and tortillas and mango curry. Need I go on?
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I just saw a report of two studies looking at the relationship between “healthy lifestyle” and cardiovascular risk and I thought it followed nicely on my last post on calorie deprivation and lifespan in rhesus monkeys. You’ll be happy to note that this time I am quoting a study of humans and not monkeys or birds or whatnot. Both studies were published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association).
One study followed men and assessed their rate of heart failure and correlated that with elements of “healthy lifestyle”. This was a large study over a long period of time and showed that the healthier the lifestyle, the lower the risk for heart failure. This study defined healthy lifestyle as containing these components: no smoking, moderate alcohol, regular exercise, normal range body weight, consumption of vegetables and fruits and inclusion of cereal at breakfast.
The other study was of women and also had many subjects over many years. This study found a correlation between lifestyle habits and high blood pressure. The elements for healthy lifestyle in this study overlapped to some degree the previous one, including normal weight, exercise, moderate drinking, and diet high in whole grains, fruits and vegetables and low in fat. The women’s study included rare use of non-narcotic pain medications such as Tylenol and Advil, and supplementation with folic acid as health factors. Women with more elements of the healthy lifestyle had lower rates of hypertension.
These studies have robust findings but overall do not seem surprising. I have to admit I would not have thought of cereal at breakfast and folic acid as parts of a healthy life. Likewise the rare use of meds for pain. I cannot explain why they included these factors. But the message about weight, diet and exercise is the one to pay attention to.

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