CNN reports some bad science: rats fed a diet of “fattening” foods like cheesecake, frosting, and sausage became obese and showed behavior indicating they were addicted to the food and had a similar dopamine response as to e.g. cocaine.
My beef is this: if you’re feeding the rats cheesecake and frosting, then how do you know it’s the fat and not the sugar content that is causing all observed effects? The sugars may cause the body to metabolize the fat differently, causing obesity and the dopamine response, than would happen with the fat alone (or with a regulated amount of more complex carbohydrates).
Fatty foods may cause cocaine-like addiction – CNN.com.
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See the original study: nature.com
I would call it bad reporting from CNN and bad science from the people that designed the study and from Nature for publishing it. This is an example of what is common. The people designing the study know the outcome they want to achieve. So the study is designed to get it. Of course, had they really wanted to do a study there would have instead been a high-fat low-carb group and a high-carb low-fat group. But then they wouldn’t get what they wanted and they would not have gotten published.