Like an addiction Why we can not stop at chips

Cravings on chips: why always the whole bag is eaten empty

Chips really do not belong to a healthy diet. People who consume too much risk not only getting fat, but often also get pimples, blackheads and blemished skin. Although most people are aware of this, it is usually hard to stop once the bag has been opened. Why is that? This question has now occupied German researchers.

After the "crime scene" the chip bag is usually empty

Actually, everyone knows that you should not eat too many chips, because they are known as fattening. But especially in the cozy TV evening, when you look together "crime scene" or a blockbuster, many can no longer stop nibbling. Only when the bag is empty is it over. But why is that so? German scientists have once again dealt with this question.

Once you start eating chips, it's usually over when the bag is empty. German researchers are now pursuing the question of why this is so. (Image: Syda Productions / fotolia.com)

Nibbles with addictive factor

"Hedonic hyperphagia" - that is what scientists call it when you can not stop eating potato chips or chocolate.

This so-called "potato chips effect" has also been shown in scientific studies in the past.

For example, researchers at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) reported a few years ago on experiments with rats that showed why chips are addictive.

The scientists wrote in a statement that "the ratio of how a food is composed, plays an important role" plays: "50 percent carbohydrates and 35 percent fat seduce you to snack," said the experts.

However, the cravings for chips could be explained only conditionally with the fat and carbohydrate content.

Because rats that received the same fat-carbohydrate mixture, as in potato chips, showed a less pronounced activation in the brain, as animals after eating the chips.

Reward center in the brain is activated

The Erlangen researchers have now carried out a follow-up study with people and came to the conclusion that the reward center in the brain is the more activated the chip food, the higher the body mass index (BMI), reports the news agency dpa.

As part of their study, the researchers gave just 20 men and women to eat potato chips and zucchini three days later. Before and after, her brain was examined in the MRI.

According to the data, the brain reacted to the consumption of the chips particularly strongly, similar to what had previously been observed in rats.

"For us, the most interesting finding was that, depending on the person's BMI, exactly the same structure changes in the brain as in rats - the nucleus accumbens," says study leader Andreas Hess, according to dpa.

It is a region involved in the so-called reward center of the brain. However, the experts do not know why this is so. "We continue to investigate, we are here at a very critical point."

In obese people, the reward system reacts slightly differently

The effect of food on the brain is sometimes compared to that of drugs. Dopamine plays a major role here.

According to researchers, this can create a kind of vicious circle that makes you need more and more of a particular substance to get the same euphoric state, the same reward feeling - so you become addicted to it.

According to Isa Mack of the University Hospital Tübingen, however, the subject of eating addiction in science is discussed very controversially. Nutrition and reward system always belonged together.

"For everything that is important for self-preservation and self-propagation, the reward system must start," said the expert, according to dpa.

It is an "evolutionary heir" that reacts to "sweet and greasy". In addition, it is known that when eating the reward system react slightly different in very overweight people.

"But that does not mean that it has always been this way or that it can not be changed," says Mack. "Brain activities are mutable," said the nutritionist. For example, they changed after weight loss.

Researchers were surprised by the result

For humans, the results of the earlier rat study may also be interesting, which showed that potato chips "lead to activation in the reward center," as Hess explained.

The researchers had actually expected that the animals find the food the more attractive, the richer it is - so the higher the energy content. "That was not so," explained Hess. "The rats clearly prefer the ratio of about 35 percent fat to 45 percent carbohydrates."

Apart from chips, this ratio also has many other foods, such as chocolate or nut nougat cream.

"The mammalian brain is not just about high energy content, but on this mixing ratio. This appeals to the reward center particularly well ", so the explanation of the Erlanger researchers.

Although the evidence for this is still pending, but this should probably not be much different in humans.

Since humans as species are still very young and have good nutrition, as we have them today, relatively new, the human brain is still out to take as much "good", so rich food when it is available.

"For the body, this mixture may be physiologically ideal - it provides fast mobilizable energy through the carbohydrates and storable energy in the fat content," according to the hypothesis of Hess.

Do not take the whole pack in front of the TV

"It is surprising that rat and human seem to behave relatively similar here," said the nutritionist Hans Hauner of the TU Munich in the dpa message.

This principle used to be very useful because food was not guaranteed. "It's only been 50 years that we have a surplus of nutritional energy, so that this principle is increasingly becoming a problem and especially promotes overweight," said the expert.

However, other things also played a role in the popularity of food, according to Isa Mack.

According to the agency report, the Erlangen researchers have excluded in their study that the salt plays a major role in the attractiveness of the feed, ie the chips. But Mack does not consider that irrelevant.

"If we had chips without salt and without seasoning, then we would not eat them in larger quantities," said the expert.

In addition, fat alone makes the food or feed quite attractive by its amount of energy. However, from a certain point on, the body can no longer handle too much fat and it will not taste good anymore.

"If I ate half a butter, it would make me sick," said Mack, who pointed out that the food industry had also extensively tested what's the best mixing ratio of human chips.

Andreas Hess therefore has some advice on how to better control the cravings for chips:

"Be aware: Do not take the whole bag in front of the TV, just a small bowl." Outsmarting yourself should help to avoid emptying every pack on the sofa. (Ad)