Do you really love cheese? Ever find yourself getting up in the middle of the night for a cheese FIX?
It turns out you could actually be addicted!
A new scientific study from the University of Michigan has examined which items equate to the “drugs” of the gastronomic world.
Pizza topped the list – they found it was because of its highly addictive cheesy, fatty topping.
“Fat seemed to be equally predictive of problematic eating for everyone, regardless of whether they experience symptoms of ‘food addiction,” Erica Schulte, one of the study’s authors, told Mic.
This is due to a chemical known as casein, which can be found in dairy products.
Dr Neal Barnard of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine concurred, saying casein “breaks apart during digestion to release a whole host of opiates called casomorphins.”
Casomorphins interact with opioid receptors – the same receptors which are stimulated by heroin and which are involved in controlling pain, reward and addiction in the brain.
Registered dietician Cameron Wells explained to Mic that casomorphins “really play with the dopamine receptors and trigger that addictive element.”
While all dairy products contain casein, there’s only a tiny amount in milk compared with cheese. A kilo of cheese is made with about 10 kilos of milk so the casein becomes far more concentrated and the addictive element is intensified.
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