Readers, I want to thank everyone who voted for me for as the Top Blogger in the Green Living Category, in Wellsphere’s “People’s HealthBlogger Awards.” I work hard to bring the latest environmental, health, and behavioral news to my blog at http://veggierevolution.blogspot.com and this website and I appreciate the recognition. Thank you!!
You can see the list of winner’s at www.wellsphere.com. Click on “Health Blogger Awards.”
Thanks again 🙂
Sally
This post now a Google News Link, on www.basilandspice.com, and on Behavioral Health Central
Ever wonder if babies are listening and learning while they’re in the womb? Turns out they are, say researchers from the University of Wurzburg in Germany. Their observations were published online in the November issue of Current Biology.
The research team recorded more than a thousand cries from 30 French newborns and 30 German newborns. They then analyzed the melodic patterns of the cries to look for differences between the two groups. The researchers wondered if the cries had any resemblance to the speech patterns of the infants’ mothers.
French and German adults have different patterns of intonation, some of which are easily identifiable. For example, the intonation of French speakers tends to rise at the end of words or phrases. The speech of Germans tends to fall at the end of words or phrases.
The newborns in the study, who were only 2-5 days old, cried in a melodic pattern that resembled their parents’ language. The French babies’ cries tended to have a rising melody as does the French language. The German infants’ cries tended to have a falling melody like the German tongue. Because the infants were so young, the researchers inferred that they had learned the melodic patterns in the womb.
Scientists already knew that, in the final months of gestation, fetuses can hear people talking, especially their mothers. Previous studies have reported that newborns prefer the sound of their mothers’ voices to the voices of other people. Wermke, a member of the University of Wurzburg research team, believes that babies try to imitate their mothers’ behaviors and to mimic the musical structure of their mothers’ words in order to attract her attention and foster bonding. Earlier research by Fernald and Simon (see “Sources” below) has shown that infants even perceive the emotional content of their mothers’ speech conveyed by intonation.
The first visible effort of infants to imitate the mother is the crying, with its falling or rising intonations. Later, the tendency to imitate vocalization is incorporated into babbling, Wermke proposes. From age 3 months on, infants begin to reproduce the vowel sounds they hear from adults.
What does this mean for parents of newborns? Crying is not only a signal of distress, it’s also a baby’s effort to imitate mom in order to encourage attachment. Wermke says that parents should listen more carefully and appreciate the complexity of their babies’ cries. “Crying is a language itself,” she says, “and the baby is really trying to communicate with us by its first sounds already.”
Key words:: human behavior infant crying infant bonding listening in the womb crying in native language
Sources:
Birgit Mampe, Angela D. Friederici, Anne Christophe and Kathleen Wermke
“Newborns’ Cry Melody Is Shaped by Their Native Language”
Current Biology, Volume 19, Issue 23, 11/5/2009
“Expanded intonation contours in mothers’ speech to newborns.” Developmental Psychology, Volume 20, 104–113. 1984.
Bruce Bower, “Newborns may cry in their mother tongues.” Science News. 12/5/2009
Neil Greenfieldboyce. “Babies may pick up language cues in womb.” National Public Radio. 11/6/2009
All photos and text by Sally Kneidel, PhD at sallykneidel.com
Ever read “Snows of Kilimanjaro” by Ernest Hemingway? Some of those famous Kilimanjaro glaciers have been around for at least 11,700 years, and survived a drought 4200 years ago that lasted 300 years. But pretty soon, those legendary snows and ice fields will be gone – another casualty of global climate change.
The ice masses of Kilimanjaro are both receding up the peak, and they’re thinning dramatically. Kilimanjaro’s Southern Ice Field, 21 meters thick in 2000, lost 5.1 meters between 2000 and 2007.
As the glaciers retreat and break into smaller pieces, the dark rocks become exposed and absorb more sunlight than the white ice, thus heating up more than the ice and accelerating the melting of the surrounding ice. At the documented rates of melting, Kilimanjaro’s ice fields could disappear by the year 2022, according to Thompson and his colleagues in their online article in the November 2 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The climatological phenomena occurring on Kilimanjaro are thought to be applicable to other tropical peaks, such as those in the Andes. Says Ted Pfeffer, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, these studies will help predict when other tropical glaciers will melt and disappear. Many of these tropical glaciers provide water for people downhill, by way of seasonal glacial melt that is replenished by winter snowfall.
Above, another Quechuan family of farmers and herders in the valley below Mt. Huascaran, the highest tropical peak in the world. Photo by Sally Kneidel, PhD
What will happen when glacial melt is no longer available to communities living on and below the world’s peaks? Lives will change, people will move…..who knows beyond that.
Thompson’s recent publication was likely one of the studies that contributed to the Copenhagen Diagnosis. One of the conclusions of the Copenhagen Diagnosis, in its Executive Summary, is as follows:
“Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.”
So…stay tuned. Let’s see what the conclusions are from the climate summit in Copenhagen. Will we all be advised to give up animal products? That would be the easiest and fastest thing to do, since Worldwatch Institute concluded that 51% of annual worldwide greenhouse-gas emissions are from livestock. I’m waiting for President Obama to tell us what we’re going to do as a nation. If he doesn’t include the fact that we now eat more animal products per capita than any other country, I’m going to suspect that he’s not reading all the news.
As individuals, we can work to slow the process by reducing our own greenhouse gas emissions. Residents of the United States have the highest per capita generation of GG in the world. We can reduce our output by
eating fewer animal products (see “Livestock and Climate Change” by Worldwatch Institute), by driving less, carpooling, driving fuel-efficient cars, choosing passive-solar homes, and in general burning fewer fossil fuels. Take the Environmental Footprint quiz and learn more how to reduce your own carbon footprint. We all have to participate, if we are to reduce global climate change during the short window of opportunity we have during the next few years.
For more practical suggestions about how to reduce your carbon footprint, see our book Going Green: A Wise Consumer’s Guide to a Shrinking Planet. The book offers strategies regarding diet, housing, transportation, clothing, and other consumer choices that we all make every day.
L.G. Thompson et al. “Glacier loss on Kilimanjaro continues unabated.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 11/2/2009.
Sid Perkins. “Mount Kilimanjaro could soon be bald: world renowned ice caps may disappear by the 2020s.” Science News. 12/5/2009.
Copenhagen Diagnosis, Executive Summary. 2009
Sally Kneidel, PhD, “Livestock responsible for 51% of annual worldwide greenhouse-gas emissions“.
Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang. “Livestock and Climate Change: What if the key factors in climate change are cows, pigs, and chickens?” Worldwatch 22(6):10-19. Nov/Dec 2009.
Livestock account for 51% of annual global climate change.
Copenhagen data: 10% of Florida underwater by the end of the century
One-tenth of Louisiana to be submerged by 2010
Irvine CA schools go solar; most comprehensive solar school plan in the U.S.
Most earth-friendly mass transit
Green tip #1: Annex the outdoors and save energy and materials
How to buy a used, fuel-efficient, and green car
North Carolina’s vital coastal breeding grounds vulnerable to rising seas
Key words:: melting ice caps Kilimanjaro rising sea levels climate change
This post is now a Google News Link and is posted on Basil & Spice
This post named by Carnival of the Green #207 as “Best Green Tweet” of the week. It was posted on Twitter December 14, 2009.
I wrote a few weeks ago that ten percent of Louisiana is projected to be underwater by the year 2100. Now, it looks like Florida is in the same boat. Or perhaps I should say “in need of” the same boat.
If we apply the predictions coming from the Copenhagen climate meetings (Dec. 7-18) to the topography of Florida, then ten percent of Florida too will be inundated by the end of this century.
The new climate projections from Copenhagen are in a report called the “Copenhagen Diagnosis,” composed by a group of 26 climatologists. In essence, it says that the situation is worse than we thought – glaciers and ice sheets are melting faster, oceans are rising faster. The report is a summary of hundreds of peer-reviewed research papers published in the last couple of years. The Copenhagen Diagnosis supersedes a 2007 report from the IPCC that has been the standard for reference on climate statistics since its publication a couple of years ago. Fourteen of the climatologists who compiled the Copenhagen Diagnosis were also authors of the 2007 report from the IPCC, or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That IPCC report was scary enough. The IPCC chairman declared dramatically, in 2007, that action must be taken by 2012 in order to have any effect on global warming. So we should be in the midst of those corrective actions right now, which unfortunately, we are not.
Anyway, the Copenhagen Diagnosis is even more severe than the 2-year-old IPCC report. Some specifics from the Copenhagen Diagnosis: Arctic sea ice is melting 40% faster than was projected a few years ago. The IPCC had estimated that sea levels would rise 1.9 mm per year between 1993 and 2008. We now know from satellite data that seas have risen 3.4 mm per year during that same period, which is 80% more rise than predicted. The rise is from thermal expansion (water expands as it warms) as well as melting glaciers, ice sheets, and ice caps.
According to the Copenhagen climatologists, by the end of this century global sea levels will rise at least twice as much as earlier predicted by the IPCC. If heat-trapping emissions are not reduced, the rise will be 1 to 2 meters by the year 2010. And they will keep on rising for centuries, for a total of several meters – even if global temperatures have been stabilized.
What will happen in Florida when sea levels rise, say, 27 inches? Frank Ackerman, a senior economist at the Stockholm Institute, has studied that question with computer modeling. His model projects a 27-inch rise by the year 2060, just 50 years from now.
About Florida, Ackerman says, “Our map of the area vulnerable to 27 inches of sea-level rise looks like someone took a razor to the state right above Miami and sliced off everything below that, [which includes] residential real estate worth $130 billion in that, half of Florida’s beaches, two nuclear reactors, three prisons, 37 nursing homes, and on and on.”
What about levees, like in New Orleans and the Netherlands? Would that help?
They won’t work in Florida, because the metropolitan area of South Florida is built on porous limestone.
Dr. Hal Wanless, Chairman of Geological Sciences at the University of Miami, says that rising sea levels come right up through the limestone, as was proved during Hurricane Betsy. “There’s no way to put a levee around South Florida and really keep the water out.”
Katy Sorenson, a County Commissioner in Miami-Dade, says “We’re going to be fighting flooding year-round. And we’re going to have to adapt to that.” For example, building codes will have to require higher foundations, she says.
Yes, but somehow it seems that she’s missing the point. Is she paying attention? When Miami is underwater, a higher foundation is not going to help.
This issue is not restricted to Florida and Louisiana of course. Approximately 50% of the world’s population live within 60 miles of a coastline. Those numbers vary a little depending upon the source; Jared Diamond says something similar in his book Collapse. And most of those people are living in developing nations with few resources and no wealth to buffer the effect of lost homes, flooded farms. This is why we’ll be hearing the term “climate refuge” more and more as the years tool along.
Well. I’ll be interested to hear more news from Copenhagen. The Copenhagen Diagnosis from the climatologists has certainly earned some attention. It includes general recommendations, such as this:
If global warming is to be limited to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, then global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. Annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink by 2050 to 85-90% of what emissions from industrialized nations were in the year 2000. A formidable task indeed, given the seeming inability of governments to fight the interests of big business.
What I’ll be interested to hear next is how will our country, and the world, make such cuts in greenhouse gas emissions? What’s the plan, and who’s in charge of executing it?
It’s one thing to hear dire predictions and daunting must-do statements. They just get our attention (hopefully) so that we’re listening when the specific plans for how we’re going to change are announced. I hope President Obama will do his part, as the leader of the country that generates more greenhouse-gas emissions per capita than any other country in the world. I’ll be waiting, with bated breath, for our leader to take the reins when he arrives in Copenhagen next week. I want him to tell us, convincingly, how we’re going to navigate this tumultuous trip through the coming decades, in order to leave a planet worth living on for our descendants.
The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science.
The Copenhagen Diagnosis. Executive Summary.
Sally Kneidel, Ph.D. ” One tenth of Louisiana to be submerged by 2100.” 11/9/09
Greg Allen. “Florida faces drastic change from sea level rise.” All Things Considered, National Public Radio. Dec 11, 2009.
Jared Diamond. Collapse. 2004.
Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang. “Livestock and Climate Change: What if the key factors in climate change are cows, pigs, and chickens?” Worldwatch 22(6):10-19. Nov/Dec 2009.
Sally Kneidel, PhD. ” Livestock account for 51% of annual worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.” 11/2/09
Key words:: Copenhagen Diagnosis climate change sea level rise Florida flooded Florida inundated
This post now appearing on Google News and on www.basilandspice.com.
We’re making progress! The southern California city of Irvine is taking a giant leap for “green” energy that should help other cities follow suit. All 21 schools in the Irvine Unified School District will soon be solar-powered, by rooftop photo-voltaic panels. The historic plan was approved Tuesday Dec 8 by the Irvine school district. The project, when completed, will be one of the largest solar installations for any school system in the country.
PV panels are expensive, but the project will cost taxpayers nothing. Rather, SunEdison (the local power company) will finance, build, operate and maintain the solar power systems. The Irvine school district will purchase energy with long-term predictable pricing from Sun Edison. The plan will reduce Irvine’s power bill for its school by 20% right away. Over 20 years, the school district’s savings will amount to $17 million!
The obvious benefits for the plan are (1) cost savings and (2) no longer creating demand for harmful or dangerous energy sources such as coal or nuclear. Just in terms of the city’s carbon footprint, the school system’s solar project will offset a projected 127 million pounds of carbon dioxide over 20 years – the equivalent of removing more than 12,000 cars from the road for one year, based on an average of 12,000 annual miles per vehicle. That’s according to a SunEdison press release about the plan.
But the project will accomplish much more than financial and direct environmental benefits. In an email to Kelly Jad’on of www.basilandspice.com, Irvine School Board member Shelly Yarbrough says that she’s even more excited about the educational component of the new solar energy system.
“The school district may be installing the solar panels on the roofs, but the district is taking solar into the classroom as well, with a full complement of courses that will take advantage of all the information this system provides. That to me means math, physics, computers, technology, business, finance, and even art. I think the resources they are devoting to this is also unprecedented.”
Irvine school-board member Yarbrough goes on to say that she just returned from a state-wide educational conference in San Diego, where lots of people were talking about “how they want to do that kind of thing in their school district as well.”
Indeed. Precedents are so important. I applaud wildly Irvine’s taking this vital step, and their taking the trouble to publicize it so broadly. I know that other schools are using PV panels to some degree (see some of them in Jeff Barrie’s excellent documentary “Kilowatt Ours“; see also my review of “Kilowatt Ours”). But apparently Irvine has made a bigger commitment than predecessors. It’s exactly what we need right now. I feel some momentum, with this Irvine story and with Obama on his way to Copenhagen’s climate negotiations on Dec 18. I hope so much that the momentum I sense toward taking our carbon footprint seriously is real.
Sources:
Personal communication from Irvine School Board member Shelly Yarbrough to Kelly Jad’on
“IUSD Board Approves Historic Solar Agreement Projected to Save $17 Million” Press Release from SunEdison. Dec 9, 2009.
Keywords:: carbon footprint, solar power, solar schools
Remember that old song “If You Wanna Be Happy” by Jimmy Soul?
The first verse goes like this:
Turns out that song is all wrong. It should be the other way around! Or so says psychologist James McNulty, writing in the Journal of Family Psychology. My daughter emailed me a link to his article, finding it amusing. I printed it (on scratch paper!) and laid it beside my computer. Within 5 minutes my husband strolled into my office (he works at the same place), picked up the article and looked it over, then bolted into the coffee room next to my office waving the paper and announcing to all “So this is what she really thinks of me!!” He was joking of course. He’s always funny. Now that would be a good topic for a study – how women rate humor in a spouse. I bet it’s off the charts.
Anyway, the article my daughter emailed me was really interesting, and it was research-based, unlike the song! Dr. McNulty involved 82 couples in his study, taping each couple for 10 minutes as they discussed a personal problem such as job-seeking, healthier eating, or frequency of exercise. Later each tape was rated for how supportive each spouse was of the partner’s issues.
“A negative husband would’ve said, ‘This is your problem, you deal with it,'” McNulty said, “versus ‘Hey, I’m here for you, what do you want me to do?, how can I help you?'”
In addition, the experimenter trained a group of “coders” to rate the facial attractiveness of each spouse from 1 to 10, with 10 being maximally good-looking. About a third of the couples were equally attractive, a third had a more attractive husband, and a third had a more attractive wife.
Then he looked for any correlations between supportive comments and attractiveness ratings. Here’s what he found: overall, both husbands and wives were more supportive when the wife was more attractive than her husband!
Said McNulty, “The husband who’s less physically attractive than his wife is getting something more than maybe he can expect to get. He’s getting something better than he’s providing at that level. So he’s going to work hard to maintain that relationship.”
On the flip side, a man who is more attractive than his wife might have a “grass is greener” attitude, always aware that he could have access to women better looking than his wife.
McNulty suggested that women are more interested in a supportive spouse than in his looks. And their behavior mirrors their husbands’. If a man is supportive, his wife is too.
In addition, McNulty and his colleagues questioned the couples on their degree of marital satisfaction. The only association between “marital satisfaction” and attractiveness was that more attractive husbands were less satisfied. Again, this may be a function of a handsome man’s “grass is greener” perspective.
I have to say, at least part of this rings true for me. I think women do value support and encouragement from a spouse more than they value his looks. I can’t say how much men value support from a spouse. In my experience, they appreciate it and perhaps need it, but don’t actively seek it as often as women do.
What do you think?
Sources:
James K.McNulty, Lisa A. Neff, Benjamin R. Karney. “Beyond Initial Attraction: Physical Attractiveness in Newlywed Marriage.” Journal of Family Psychology. March 1, 2008.
Jeanna Bryner. “Why Beautiful Women Marry Less Attractive Men.” LiveScience. April 10, 2008.
Key words:: supportive marriage attractive spouse psychological study James McNulty Journal of Family Psychology
I read some new information today about H1N1, directly from our country’s primary source. The director of the Centers for Disease Control, which is monitoring the H1N1 pandemic, gave a weekly briefing to the press on Tuesday December 1. A transcript of Dr. Frieden’s comments is available on the CDC website.
Following is a condensation of his main points, where he talks about the decline in H1N1 cases over the last 4 weeks, and the uncertainty over whether we will see a third wave during the coming winter. In his remarks, he stresses repeatedly that right now is a good time to try again to get vaccinated against the H1N1 virus. Widespread vaccination could prevent the occurrence of a third wave of H1N1 infections. In trying to make predictions, Dr. Frieden compares the H1N1 pandemic to the flu pandemic of1957-58. I found those remarks particularly interesting. See what he has to say! There is no better expert on the subject in the United States than the director of the CDC. Following are the words of Dr. Frieden during his December 1 press briefing, edited for brevity:
“We are in a window of opportunity. We’re going from a time where there was lots of disease and not enough vaccines to a time where disease is gradually decreasing and we’re having a steady increase in the amount of vaccine available. That leaves a window of opportunity for people to be protected by getting the vaccine. The flu virus is unpredictable. We can’t be sure of what will happen in the future. There’s been a decline in activity, but there’s still lots of flu. Flu is widespread in 32 states. Although flu is going down, it’s far from gone. And flu season lasts until May. Only time will tell what the rest of the season will bring. There are still lots of kids who are sick and lots of people who are at risk of getting influenza and end up getting severely ill from it.
“One question that all of us naturally have is, will we have another wave, or another large number of cases in the months to come, between now and May? We took an informal poll of about a dozen of some of the world’s leading experts in influenza. About half of them said, yes, we think it’s likely that we’ll have another surge in cases. About half said, no, we think it’s not likely. And one said, flip a coin. We don’t know what the future will hold. What we can do is track it very closely so that as the cases develop or don’t develop, we can determine where they’re occurring and what their characteristics are.
“It’s important to remember that in the last pandemic that behaved this way, 1957-1958, more than 50 years ago, there was a large surge in cases at the beginning of the school year, then a waning of cases, and then in December, January, February, there was a big increase in the number of people who were severely ill or who died. We don’t know if that will happen this year. We do know that the vaccine is the best way to protect yourself.
“With the increasing amounts of vaccine available it is a window of opportunity for protection. There are now nearly 70 million vaccine doses available. And we’re seeing that more people are getting vaccinated. And as that happens, it’s harder for the virus to spread. Increasing supply should lead to the ease of getting vaccinated in many places, but we know it’s still far too frustrating. We know there are lots of people who wanted to get vaccinated but who haven’t been able to get vaccinated yet. We know from polls that 9 out of 10 people who wanted to get vaccinated and didn’t receive the vaccine, said they would try again. Now, it’s a good time to try again because vaccine is increasingly available. We’re seeing variability. Some states are getting school kids vaccinated and holding back some of the vaccine from doctors’ offices. Other places are mostly working with doctors’ offices and not so much with schools. So there are differences.
“We continue to have not as much vaccine as we would like to at this point. About a quarter of all of the vaccine that we have available is in the form of nasal spray which is available for people in the age of 2 to 49 who don’t have underlying health conditions. We heard about reluctance on the part of health-care workers and others to get the nasal spray. There’s really no reason to be any less confident in the nasal flu vaccine.
“In summary, we don’t know what the future will bring. We do know that we have more vaccine now. It is a real window of opportunity to get vaccinated in the coming weeks and months. And vaccination remains our best protection against the flu and for people who are sick. It’s important still to get prompt treatment. When you’re sick with flu-like symptoms, it may or not be flu, but if you’re sick, see a doctor. Or if you have an underlying health condition like diabetes, it’s particularly important to see your doctor. Thank you.”
So. What do you think? Have you tried to get vaccinated and been unable to? I would love to hear your comments on my blog at http://veggierevolution.blogspot.com or here at http://sallykneidel.com.
Source:
Keywords:: H1N1 vaccine swine flu CDC pandemic
Last weekend, our neighbors across the street spent at least 5 hours raking the leaves from their lawn. Their whole family was involved in the process. Granted, it was probably good exercise. Although for me, raking hurts my back – having to twist and pull at the same time. So maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t “good exercise” for the neighbors.
At any rate, the family bagged their leaves into 23 black garbage bags and lined them up along the edge of the street for the city to pick up. Because these neighbors didn’t use transparent bags, their leaves will not be chopped up by the city and recycled as mulch, but will instead go to the landfill.
Ken and I don’t like the idea of robbing our own trees of all the valuable nutrients stored in their leaves. The big oak trees around here have a hard time, between the frequent droughts and the city’s persistent infestation of fall cankerworms. So we stopped raking a couple of years ago.
Instead of raking, we decided to try mowing the leaves and then leaving them on the lawn. We did it a few times last fall and winter and it worked great. At first, I thought they would make a brown carpet that would persist and smother the grasses. I was wrong. The leaves virtually disappear after they’re mowed. They just sink into the grass and eventually into the soil, where they decompose and feed the tree roots.
Why doesn’t everyone who has a lawn chop-up the leaves and let them lie? Or better yet, just let them lie unmowed, and convert to a native woodland? Where did we get the idea that leaves must be raked or blown, or that we need to have pristine lawns to begin with? It seems to be a meaningless tradition that we need to re-think, given the rate at which we’re destroying wildlife habitat by development. How much better if we can all do something to leave our yards a little more natural. See the National Wildlife Federation or my blog posts below for ideas about making your yard more wildlife-friendly.
My previous “Green Tip” posts, and previous posts about lawns:
Green Tip #1: Annex the Outdoors; Save Energy & Materials
How to convert a lawn to a native meadow or woodland
Top 10 eco-friendly yard and garden choices
Lawns are 5th largest crop in terms of land use
Yard drama: a story of housecats, chipmunks, rats, ivy, and native plants
Housecats kill hundreds of millions of birds annually
Key words:: lawns nutrient recycling falling leaves raking leaves wildlife habitat
Tis the season to eat pecan pies, Christmas cookies, cheese sticks, and other festive goodies. Right? Just for a month or so. Then we’ll all go on diets! Diet books’ highest sales are right after the holidays. I’ve already gained a couple of pounds and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet!
But after reading this study in Science News, which I’m about to describe, I’m going to take a little more care in tossing down the sweet and high-fat treats this season. Read what happened to these rats! Sure they’re rats, but they’re mammals just like we are, and their brain physiology is far more similar to ours than it is different. Listen up to what these scientists Paul Kenny and Paul Johnson found out about the addictive nature of junk food.
Neuroscientists Paul Kenny and Paul Johnson from Scripps Research Institute reported last month that rats fed a steady diet of high-fat junk food develop addictive behavior similar to heroin addiction!
The rats in the study were divided into two groups. One group was fed a healthy diet of high-nutrient, low-calorie chow. The other group was given unlimited amounts of junk food, which included Ho Hos (packaged cakes), bacon, cheesecake, pound cake and sausage.
The two researchers found that, for the junk-food rats, the pleasure centers in the brain became less responsive to the tasty high-fat food, requiring more and more food to stimulate the brain’s pleasure centers. Consequently, the rats began to eat compulsively, taking in twice as many calories as the other group, and soon became obese.
Habituation to the high-fat diet was surprisingly fast. After only five days on the junk-food diet, the rats showed “profound reductions” in the responsiveness of their brains’ pleasure centers. At this point, the rats “lose control” of their eating, said researcher Paul Kenny of Scripps. “This is the hallmark of addiction.”
As another way to assess the impact of junk-food on the rats’ brains, the scientists used electrodes to stimulate the pleasure centers in the brains of both groups of rats. The rats could control the amount of pleasurable stimulation by running on a wheel. The more they ran, the more pleasurable stimulation they felt. During this part of the experiment, the rats that were addicted to junk food ran more than the healthy-diet rats, indicating that they needed more stimulation of the pleasure center to feel good.
So what happened when the junk-food addicts were forced to go cold turkey and give up the cakes and bacon? The addictive changes in the brain persisted for weeks, even after the rats’ weights returned to normal. In presenting their data at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in October of 2009, scientists Paul Kenny and Paul Johnson speculated that the addicted rats’ response to food may be changed permanently.
Ack! Well then, maybe it’s a good thing that my co-worker snatched up the last piece of pecan pie at work yesterday. There was nothing left but apple pie, and that was too wholesome for the mood I was in. I wanted something wickedly sweet.
But for real, I plan to keep in mind the five days to food addiction reported by these guys at Scripps, and exercise some control this season. Before it’s too late!
Sources:
Laura Sanders. “Junk food turns rats into addicts. Bacon, cheesecake, Ho Hos alter brain’s pleasures centers.” Science News. November 21, 2009.
Paul Johnson and Paul Kenny. “Society of Neuroscience Program.” ‘Neuroscience 2009’ Conference. October 17-21, 2009. Chicago.
Key words:: junk food, addiction, holiday food, high-fat foods, diet, nutrition
by author, attorney, and animal-activist Jim Mason
Any use of images or text from this website must be attributed to Sally Kneidel, PhD. Photos and text by Sally Kneidel, PhD is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on text and photos at sallykneidel.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at sally.kneidel@gmail.com.
