In my eighteen years on this world, I don’t believe I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t like to eat Oreos. But to my dismay, a fairly new study claims that the very popular cookie snack can be as addicting as the drug Cocaine.
This study I am referring to was recently conducted in Connecticut College using lab rats as the subjects. The researchers tested their theory by creating a maze for the rats to utilize. On one side of the maze, the rat obtained an Oreo when it was completed. But on the opposite side, the rat was given a rice cake when it made it to the end. The amount of time that each rat spent with either the Oreo cookie or rice cake was measured and it seems almost obvious to me that the rats spent more time on the Oreo side as opposed to the bland tasting rice cake side. Perhaps, I feel this way because I have a sweet tooth. The experiment was now repeated but the rewards on both sides of the maze changed. Finishing one side of the resulted in a shot or Cocaine or Morphine. The other side concluded with a shot of saline. This time around it was observed that the lab rats spent more time on the side of the maze that ended with Cocaine/Morphine as opposed to the Saline shot. The brains of the lab rats shown more production of a protein called c-Fos which means there was an increase in cell activity in the rats’ brain. It was observed that more c-Fos was produced when the lab rat was eating an Oreo than when it was given Cocaine or Morphine.
I would have to disagree with the conclusion that was drawn from this study and after reading various articles, I have seen I am not the only one who has some opposition. First of all, I would like to say that for me it is frightening to see headlines that claim such a popular snack is
‘as addicting’ as a hard core drug! I think that whoever is creating these headlines are clearly aiming to get a readers attention (which clearly cause me to stop and read) but at the same time, I truly believe that the correlation between addictiveness of cocaine and Oreos is a bit of a stretch. I feel as if the word addictive is being misused simply because the lab rats chose to stay near the Oreo longer than they remained near the drug. Just because they are receiving pleasure from the consumption of a cookie does not by any means guarantee an addiction. Personally, I do not believe that one can be addicted to any type of food. They may enjoy eating it and then in turn say they are ‘addicted’ but using that term in that sense isn’t at all correct. Many components combined make up a legitimate addiction and those components can be different for anyone. One thing that universally is used to characterize an addiction is the inability to think clearly. A person who has an addiction is willing to do anything they have to do in order to obtain what they need or are craving. They also do not consider negative consequences they may face due to the fact that their mind is so consumed with the object they are addicted too. I have never heard of a person committing murder or robbing a bank because they simply needed to consume an Oreo. Although I do not believe it is possible to have a legitimate harmful addiction to a certain food, I do however believe that compulsive or excessive eating can be used to cope with problems that others may seek an actual addictions to cope with. What I mean is if a girl gets broken up with by her long time boy friend, she may eat galloons of ice cream or binge eat Chinese food. Where as an alcoholic would turn to alcohol ins order to cope with the pain of a break up. To me, occasionally emotional or binge eating to deal with a problem has no comparison to a person drinking or using drugs to deal with the same problem. I would say that this study does definitely show eating Oreos is a pleasurable thing to do whether the consumer is a human or a lab rat.
A huge fault that I read about in this experiment was that during the two trials the mice either had an addictive drug such as Morphine or Saline. The other trial lead in either Oreos or rice cake. In order to complete this study and show that Oreos would have been chosen other the Morphine would have been conducting a third trial. Many are skeptical with the findings due to the fact that the lab rats never had the opportunity to chose between the two most important things in the study! Once that was pointed out to me in an article, I was very shocked. It seems almost foolish in science to compare two things that were never actually tested together. I think it is safe to say that until this study is re-modeled or until food addiction is a legitimate thing, no consumer should be fearful of a serious and intense addiction to Oreo cookies.
Sources:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2013/oct/21/oreos-addictive-cocaine
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/18/rats-find-oreos-as-addictive-as-cocaine-an-unusual-college-research-project/
http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/10/16/oreos-may-be-as-addictive-as-cocaine/
http://www.livescience.com/40488-oreos-addictive-cocaine.html