The team’s study, published in 2015, stands as the first to conclude that high-potency doses of engineered food shared properties with drugs of abuse and spurred “addictive-like eating.” Refined sugar and fat together lit up the brain’s reward system. Hearing this, I was reminded of the pill-mill doctors who discovered that prescribing a combination of opioids and benzodiazepines (Xanax) got patients quickly dependent, making them reliable customers. Together, the two drugs were more powerful than each alone. Avena and Gearhardt reached a similar conclusion regarding the combination of sugar
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