Oreos as addictive as cocaine

While most of us will jokingly admit to a chocolate biscuit addiction, researchers have found that Oreos are genuinely as addictive as cocaine and morphine - in lab rats, at least. And, what’s more, the rats tend to eat them in much the same way as humans: they go for the centre first.

Connecticut College researchers have found that rats form an equally strong association between the pleasurable effects associated with eating Oreos and a specific environment as they did between cocaine or morphine and a specific environment. They also found that eating cookies activated more neurons in the brain’s ‘pleasure centre’ than exposure to drugs of abuse.

“Our research supports the theory that high-fat/high-sugar foods stimulate the brain in the same way that drugs do,” said Joseph Schroeder, Associate Professor of Psychology at Connecticut College. Schroeder is also director of the college’s behavioural neuroscience program.

The study was sparked by Jamie Honohan, a student in the college’s Holleran Center for Community Action and Public Policy. Honohan was interested in how the prevalence of high-fat/high-sugar foods in low-income neighbourhoods contributes to the obesity epidemic.

“My research interests stemmed from a curiosity for studying human behaviour and our motivations when it comes to food,” said Honohan. “We chose Oreos not only because they are America’s favourite cookie, and highly palatable to rats, but also because products containing high amounts of fat and sugar are heavily marketed in communities with lower socioeconomic statuses.”

To test the addictiveness of Oreos, the researchers worked to measure the association between ‘drug’ and environment. On one side of a maze, they gave hungry rats Oreos and on the other, rice cakes. (It turns out rats like eating rice cakes as much as humans: not very much.) The rats were given the option of spending time on either side of the maze. The researchers measured how long the rats would spend on the side where they were typically fed Oreos.

They compared the results of the Oreo and rice cake test with results from rats who were given an injection of cocaine or morphine on one side of the maze and an injection of saline solution on the other.

The rats conditioned with Oreos spent as much time on the ‘drug’ side of the maze as the rats conditioned with cocaine or morphine.

The researchers used immunohistochemistry to measure the expression of a protein called c-Fos, a marker of neuronal activation, in the nucleus accumbens - the brain’s ‘pleasure centre’.

“It basically tells us how many cells were turned on in a specific region of the brain in response to the drugs or Oreos,” said Schroeder.

They found that Oreos activated significantly more neurons than cocaine or morphine.

“This correlated well with our behavioural results and lends support to the hypothesis that high-fat/high-sugar foods are addictive,” said Schroeder.

Honohan says this presents a problem for the general public.

“Even though we associate significant health hazards with taking drugs like cocaine and morphine, high-fat/high-sugar foods may present even more of a danger because of their accessibility and affordability,” Honahan said.