Researchers have found that after being on an unhealthy diet, rats became indifferent in their food choices and had lost their natural preference for novelty in food.
A diet of junk food not only makes rats fat, but also reduces their appetite for novel foods, a preference that normally drives them to seek a balanced diet, reports a study published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Psychology.
The study helps to explain how excessive consumption of junk food can change behavior, weaken self-control and lead to overeating and obesity.
The team of researchers, led by Professor Margaret Morris, Head of Pharmacology from the School of Medical Sciences, UNSW Australia, taught young male rats to associate each of two different sound cues with a particular flavor of sugar water – cherry and grape.
Healthy rats, raised on a healthy diet, stopped responding to cues linked to a flavor in which they have recently overindulged. This inborn mechanism, widespread in animals, protects against overeating and promotes a healthy, balanced diet.
But after 2 weeks on a diet that included daily access to cafeteria foods, including pie, dumplings, cookies, and cake – with 150% more calories – the rats' weight increased by 10% and their behavior changed dramatically. They became indifferent in their food choices and no longer avoided the sound advertising the overfamiliar taste. This indicated that they had lost their natural preference for novelty. The change even lasted for some time after the rats returned to a healthy diet.
(Score: 2) by unitron on Friday August 29 2014, @04:51AM
...one with only "real" sugar and no HFCS, and the other with HFCS.
something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Friday August 29 2014, @05:08AM
Why's that? I would have thought if you wanted to compare different sugars you'd go up the complexity chain to sugars that might be healthy? EG, some claim starch is a complex carb (low GI), yet others claim it takes a mere two minutes to become sucrose. I'd love to know the truth of that.
However this study just used the sugar water to test it's preference for new foods after "2 weeks on a diet that included daily access to cafeteria foods, including pie, dumplings, cookies, and cake".
(Score: 2) by unitron on Friday August 29 2014, @12:02PM
It's that "...diet that included daily access to cafeteria foods, including pie, dumplings, cookies, and cake" 2 versions of which I'd like to see, one the way it is today, with HFCS snuck into everything, and the other the way it was half a century or so ago, when corn was neither in our gas tanks or our soft drinks, but rather on the cob or in cornbread, where it belonged.
something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Friday August 29 2014, @12:53PM
Being Australian, I thought that meant meat pies and Shanghai soup dumplings, but I suppose you're right. I don't think we use much HFCS down here though, but it surely wasn't much better.
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Friday August 29 2014, @07:46AM
Why would an Australian University do research on a sugar replacement that is mostly used in the USA?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29 2014, @11:09AM
Because science?
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Friday August 29 2014, @06:49AM
The same reason I pick up 4 chocolate bars at every trip to Family Dollar.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday August 29 2014, @06:58AM
Damn straight. Junk food rules!
Bacon ++
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by sudo rm -rf on Friday August 29 2014, @09:09AM
Last weekend I was helping a friend who is an apiarist in giving her bees sugared water as supplementary food. She told me that it is quite possible that the bees get used to this artificial high energy supply and will lose interest in nectar. This will go as far as that they will simply stop looking for food by themselves and will starve if you stop supplying them.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Friday August 29 2014, @03:33PM
elsewhere on the "nothing to see here" newsreel, panda fakes pregnancy for cushy benefits....
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29 2014, @09:48AM
It has the electrolytes rats crave.