Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions

by Michael Moss

In 1990, Ernest Noble, a biochemist and clinical psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that the people who inherited a certain allele, or variant form of a certain gene, were more likely to get addicted to things. This gene, known as DRD2, functions like a gatekeeper. It enables dopamine to reach the brain’s reward center, which, like hormones, can motivate us to act. But the allele opens the spigot a little wider, and too much motivation spells trouble when it comes to compulsive behavior. Noble first connected the gene and its allele to alcoholism. He then found them in people who used cocaine, in those addicted to cigarettes, and among people who lost control of food to the point of becoming obese.