Are You Dying for a Fix of Burger and Chips? | Patrick Basham and John Luik | Cato Institute: Commentary

Are You Dying for a Fix of Burger and Chips? | Patrick Basham and John Luik | Cato Institute: Commentary: "There are a number of problems with Johnson and Kenny's rat study.

* First, there is the major problem about rat research in general, namely, it is rat research. It proceeds on the unargued-for assumption that conclusions about animal dependency are transferable to issues of human dependency and that any behavioural differences are trivial. But behavioural differences are not trivial. The dominant model of human beings proceeds on the assumption that they, in fact, can resist and, indeed, can act in defiance of compulsive drives. Altered brain circuitry is not destiny, as the empirical evidence about other addictions amply shows.
* The rat study makes the unfounded assumption that overweight and obesity are caused by overeating. The study fails to provide any evidence in support of this assumption and there is considerable evidence against it. One of the major problems about the war on fat is that there isn't much clear evidence about what exactly causes overweight and obesity. For example, studies have shown that obese people do not routinely eat more than the non-obese - something that calls into question the entire relevance of the addicted rat study to the obesity debate.
* The entire idea of addiction cannot be substantiated as a scientific theory since there is no way in which it can be independently established beyond the subjective claims of the addicted individual. Whatever a supposed food addict might claim, there is no scientific way in which his alleged inability to stop eating can be distinguished from the fact that he either does not wish to stop or has not tried hard enough to stop. Indeed, being unwilling to stop or failing in self-discipline to stop is as probable an explanation as being 'addicted'.
* Unlike smoking, where the addicting agent is nicotine, proponents of food addiction fail to specify which particular chemical or combination of chemicals or nutrients is actually addictive. Instead, they make the claim that what is addictive is an entire food category, that is, junk food, or specific nutrients like carbohydrates. The problem is that junk food contains an enormous number of chemicals, as well as proteins, fats and carbohydrates, making it impossible to specify either which individual ingredient or combination of ingredients is supposedly addictive. And this is true of other foods as well.
* There are additional problems with carbohydrates as the supposed source of food addiction. Human, as opposed to rat, studies have found that obese women prefer high carbohydrate and high fat foods while obese men prefer high protein foods. If the cravings — the driver of addiction — of the obese are for foods with carbohydrates, fat and protein, then it is difficult to believe that carbohydrates alone are the addictive substance. Moreover, addiction, rat or human, supposedly involves compulsive cravings, yet carbohydrate consumption does not involve craving. Several studies have shown that supposed carbohydrate addicts do not improve after a carbohydrate-laden meal, which they should do if they are in fact addicted.
* Pharmacological treatments for supposed food addiction do not work, whereas behavioural therapies do. If food addiction were in fact produced through some sort of opioid-like process in the brain, then we would expect that opioid antagonists, which are used to treat drug dependency, would work. But there is no evidence that opioid antagonists prevent food cravings or the desire to overeat.
If addiction is pharmacologically produced, as the authors of the rat study claim, then animals who have been genetically modified so that their neuro-reward networks cannot process an addictive drug should not display addictive behaviours. But a number of studies have shown that this is not the case, as dopamine deficient animals still display so-called addictive behaviours.
* Finally, Johnson and Kenny's claims about food addiction fall apart with their comparison of addiction to junk food to addiction to such drugs as heroin. That's because human beings, unlike rats, are regularly able to escape the so-called addictions to psychoactive substances. The scientific literature is full of studies in which drug users were able, despite their 'addiction', to stop using their drug of choice. For instance, a 1974 study of Vietnam veterans by Leen Robbins found that only 50 per cent of those who used drugs in Vietnam continued using them after returning to the US, and only 12.5 per cent of these became regular users. And in their study on heroin addiction, Gerry Stimson and Edna Oppenheimer found that users of heroin and other substances move through a cycle of addiction and recovery that is inconsistent with the model of pharmacological compulsion and brain circuitry that dictates behaviour."