We have all eaten Oreo’s, sometimes too many, sometimes even rows, but really, who can resist?  The white stuff in between your Oreo cookies may be a “cream” filling, but new research suggests it might as well be cocaine.  Several studies have shown sugar itself is just as addictive as drugs like cocaine and often cause deadly diseases like obesity, diabetes and cancer. Health professionals are particularly concerned about our daily sugar consumption because it’s in almost everything we eat. Extremely intrigued about this discovery, I wondered: Are Oreo’s addicting in the scientific sense, and if so, how addicting are they?

Scientists have long suspected that our brains crave junk food in the same way they crave other pleasurable substances, such as illegal drugs. Previous studies in rodents and in humans have shown the same area of the brain that lights up on scans when people use drugs, also shows increased activity when study participants consume, or even look at, high fat, high sugar foods like ice cream or bacon.  Some scientists believe certain foods trigger the brain to signal for more, similar to the way addictive drugs prompt cravings; if we don’t fulfill the brain’s request, the body could produce a physical response (like caffeine headaches) similar to withdrawal symptoms.

According to a new study from Connecticut College students and a professor of neuroscience, Oreo cookies (given to lab rats) are just as addictive as cocaine. And yes, just like most of us, lab rats went for the middle of the Oreo first.  “Our research supports the theory that high-fat/high-sugar foods stimulate the brain in the same way that drugs do,” said Professor Joseph Schroeder in a statement. “It may explain why some people can’t resist these foods despite the fact that they know they are bad for them.”  Schroeder and his team found that lab rats formed an “equally strong association” between the pleasure of eating an Oreo cookie and being in the same environment as cocaine or morphine.

For the Connecticut College study, lab rats were put in a maze with an Oreo cookie on one end and a “control” food of rice cakes on the other. Of course, unsurprisingly, all of the rats went toward the Oreo first. The result? The rats gravitated toward the Oreos. The team then took these results and compared them to another study that injected lab rats with a shot of cocaine or morphine on one side of a maze and a shot of saline on the other.

When I read this, I became very skeptical because comparing the studies does NOT help prove this theory because they did not conduct the saline one nor did they perform the same kind of experimental design.  Rats, of course, don’t always behave like humans, and it remains to be seen whether Oreos are as addictive to humans as they are to rats, which is why the study is very questionable because it isn’t generalizable to humans.

Considering how extreme the accusation is of Oreo’s being as addictive as cocaine, I think that there needs to be stronger evidence to support this claim, whether it be changing the experimental design or the participants.  Others also strongly disagree with the theory that Oreo’s are as dangerous as cocaine.  Dana Smith, a science writer and PhD candidate in psychology at the University of Cambridge, is a researcher on drug addiction, and finds many faults with the studies conducted above, including relative addictiveness and lack of comparison.

“It seems like everything can make us addicted these days. Our iPhones. The internet. Oreos. But just because something is pleasurable and causes a relevant reward area of your brain to light up does not mean that it is addictive. These changes can result in feelings of craving and withdrawal, where your body has adapted to rely on the drug to feel normal. In some cases, withdrawal can be so severe that your body may actually shut down and you can die if you don’t have another hit. No matter how many Oreos you eat, this will not happen to you,” says Smith.

The sketchy part is that researchers measured the amount of time the rats spent in each half of the chamber and claim that because the two groups of mice in their experiment spent equal amount of time in the Oreo as the mice in the other experiment spent in the cocaine area, these two stimuli are equally rewarding, or “addicting.” However, they never actually compared the cocaine with the cookies! These were two completely separate groups of animals that took part in two different experiments – one testing Oreos with rice cakes and another comparing cocaine and saline.  Yes the animals showed similar behaviours in response to the drugs and to the high-fat/high-sugar food, but these things cannot be equated if they are not directly compared.  Furthermore, addiction is completely relative.  A better comparison would be a study on how how hard a rat will work for Oreos versus cocaine.

“We are biologically wired to respond to certain tastes, textures and colors, but that doesn’t mean it’s an addiction,” Gabriel Harris, an assistant professor of food science at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, told LiveScience in March.  Other factors, such as government subsidies that make junk food cheap, may be more to blame for expanding American waistlines than an outbreak of food addiction, researchers say.  More is needed to say that Oreos are as addictive as cocaine or addictive at all,” London said

The idea that junk foods can create addictive-like tendencies is not new, nor is it necessarily wrong. But the claims that this particular study makes are.  Looking at this from a cost/benefit perspective, I think that the costs of eating Oreo’s are generally low, however it is still beneficial to not overindulge in these cookies for your own health’s sake.  After hearing all sides, I am still caught in the middle of what to believe about this claim.  Both bring up good points, however I do feel that there needs to be stronger evidence in the studies to prove that Oreo’s are as addicting as cocaine.