Market

Market

Thursday, April 1, 2010

FOOD AND THE "COCAINE" EFFECT-KEY TO HEALTHY EATING


Food can have "addiction" effect on humans is a disturbing revelation and if some recent observations by a leading group of molecular therapeutic experts are to be believed, such linkage can be the basis for future remedies for curbing uncontrolled gluttony that is causing obesity and other related diseases in many countries. That food is compared to a drug like Cocaine which is addictive with millions of people in its "trap", it is time serious efforts are made to evolve ways and means to bring about radical changes in government policies and the operational style of food industry that will make processed foods less addictive.

"Doing drugs such as cocaine and eating too much junk food both gradually overload the so-called pleasure centers in the brain, according to Paul J. Kenny, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute, in Jupiter, Florida. Eventually the pleasure centers "crash," and achieving the same pleasure--or even just feeling normal--requires increasing amounts of the drug or food, says Kenny, the lead author of the study".

The terrifying question that the modern society faces is whether people who are obese will have to be treated for de-addiction like those hooked on drugs, if all known techniques of weight control fail. Or will pharmaceutical industry find a "cash cow" in the form of pills to treat addiction to foods? Those extremely concerned with the seriousness of living style disorders may even advocate to make the three main culprits for to day's human sufferings, sugar, salt and fat, cost prohibitive, to forcefully reduce their consumption. Imagine a world where sugar will cost more than Rs 100 per kg, fat Rs 200 per kg and salt Rs 50 per kg! Probably it needs a Mohammed Bin Tuglak to be reborn for putting in place such a "crazy" strategy!
V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

No comments: