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A study of food addiction put pizza at the top of the cravings list.

(The Oregonian)

Beating an addiction to heroin or other hard drugs is notoriously difficult. A cheese addiction doesn't rise to the same level, but it's a real thing and cheese does share key "pharmacokinetic properties" with "drugs of abuse," a study concludes.

University of Michigan researchers found "that cheese is particularly moreish because it contains casein," Britain's The Evening Standard wrote last month. Casein, which can make you feel euphoric, is in all dairy products, but the chemical can be found in especially high concentrations in cheese.

The study, which tracked the cravings of some 500 subjects, states that highly processed foods in general -- thanks to "the addition of fat and/or refined carbohydrates and the rapid rate the refined carbohydrates are absorbed into the system" -- spur food dependencies.

The study subjects completed a questionnaire based on the Yale Food Addiction Scale. Pizza took honors as the most addictive food. "[H]ighly processed foods, which may share characteristics with drugs of abuse (e.g. high dose, rapid rate of absorption), appear to be particularly associated with 'food addiction,'" the study states.

Study co-author Nicole Avena told the Evening Standard that the research could lead to changes in how obesity is treated. "It may not be a simple matter of 'cutting back' on certain foods," she said, "but, rather, adopting methods used to curtail smoking, drinking and drug use."

* Read the study in the academic journal PLOS One.

-- Douglas Perry