What happens to animals when they get junk food all the time? They overeat and get obese. But when you withhold junk food most of the time, giving it to them only every few days, something even more disturbing happens. The rats’ brain chemistry changes; the brain’s reward pathways start to look like the brains of people who are suffering from drug addiction. When the rats don’t get their sugary, chocolaty rat junk food, they develop withdrawal symptoms, and their brains release the stress chemical CRH (short for corticotropin-releasing hormone). The CRH makes the rats feel so bad that they are
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