{"id":372690,"date":"2025-03-29T17:09:26","date_gmt":"2025-03-29T16:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=372690"},"modified":"2025-03-29T17:09:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-29T16:09:28","slug":"oops-upfs-are-not-addictive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=372690","title":{"rendered":"OOPS \u2014UPFs are Not Addictive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guest Essay by Kip Hansen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Kevin Hall<\/a>, at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), has  recently been conducting \u201crandomized clinical trials to study how diets high in ultra-processed food may cause obesity and other chronic diseases\u201d, and was the lead author of a study,  Hall et al. (2019)  titled \u201cUltra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum<\/em> Food Intake<\/a><\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That study is almost always cited in other studies about Ultra-processed Foods (UPFs) as being \u201c\u2026the first and only to show us how\u00a0ultra-processed diets drive people to consume about 500 extra calories<\/a>\u00a0per day, without even realizing it.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 As published in\u00a0Cell Metabolism\u00a0<\/em>the\u00a0results\u00a0<\/em>of the study were summarized as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHighlights<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022  20 inpatient adults received ultra-processed and unprocessed diets for 14 days each<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022  Diets were matched for presented calories, sugar, fat, fiber, and macronutrients<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022  Ad libitum intake was <\/em>\u223c<\/em>500 kcal\/day more on the ultra-processed versus unprocessed diet<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022  Body weight changes were highly correlated with diet differences in energy intake\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a very small study \u2013 20 participants \u2013 and it showed that over a two-week period participant, who were restricted to the hospital, those eating the so-called UPF diet gained an average of about 2 lbs (1 kg) in the first six days, then their weight held steady (no further increase).\u00a0 Those on the unprocessed menu immediately began to lose weight and continued to do so throughout the 2-week period. (Photographs of the foods actually served are included in the full study report supplement \u2013\u00a0pdf download here<\/a>. )<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The papers title is false. \u00a0\u201cUltra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake\u201d \u2013 \u2018Ultra-processed diets\u2019 are not a cause in and of themselves \u2013 so this is mis-stated at best.\u00a0 It does appear that the participants preferred the UPF offerings and ate a bit more of them taking in \u201cextra\u201d calories but notice that the weight gain halted after day six after which their weights remained level.\u00a0 However, for the unprocessed diet, weight loss continued in a linear fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I emailed Dr. Hall and asked him if he thought this weight loss was a problem.\u00a0 Most\u00a0hospitalists<\/a>\u00a0(the doctors generally responsible for patients in a hospital) would be concerned by continued weight loss of their patients.\u00a0 Dr. Hall replied: \u201cBody weight loss on the minimally processed diet was not a concern, especially given that the average body mass index of the study participants was 27 kg\/m^2 which is in the overweight range.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have issues with the study conclusions \u2013 but we will let that go for now.  The point being that Dr. Kevin Hall is an anti-UPF advocate.  So much so, that he decided to prove that UPFs were addictive<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That meme \u2013 \u201cUPFs are addictive\u201d \u2013 is ubiquitous in the literature on so-called UPFs.\u00a0 So much so that there are\u00a0published studies claiming<\/a>\u00a0that \u201c14% of adults and 15% of youths\u201d are addicted to UPFs.\u00a0 The mechanism suggested for this \u201caddiction\u201d is:\u00a0 \u201cUPFs triggers addiction-like biological (e.g., dopaminergic sensitization) and behavioral (e.g., withdrawal, use despite consequences) responses\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Kevin Hall and a group at the National Institutes of Health<\/a> set out to prove that addictiveness of UPFs by showing that feeding subjects a UPF would produce a dopamine spike, just like additive drugs do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study is \u201cBrain dopamine responses to ultra-processed milkshakes are highly variable and not significantly related to adiposity in humans<\/a><\/strong>\u201d.  Dr. Hall is the lead contact for the paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this study, the journal Cell Metabolism <\/em>again summarizes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c<\/strong>Highlights<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022  PET scans found no significant mean dopamine response to ultra-processed milkshakes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022  Individual brain dopamine responses were not significantly related to adiposity<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022  Greater brain dopamine responses were correlated with fasting hunger levels<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022  Ad libitum<\/em> cookie intake was correlated with brain dopamine responses\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Try not to be confused by the reference to \u201cAd libitum<\/em> cookie intake\u201d, I\u2019ll explain later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study abstract states this more clearly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSurprisingly, milkshake consumption did not result in significant postingestive dopamine response in the striatum (p=0.62) nor any striatal subregion (p>0.33) and the highly variable interindividual responses were not significantly related to adiposity (BMI: r=0.076, p=0.51; %body fat: r=0.16, p=0.28). Thus, postingestive striatal dopamine responses to an ultra-processed milkshake were likely substantially smaller than many addictive drugs and below the limits of detection using standard PET methods.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an image:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Let\u2019s see if we can put this a little more bluntly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paraphrasing editorially: \u201cDang, our super-duper, purpose-made exemplar of a UPF didn\u2019t produce any dopamine response that we could see. \u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, afterwards, when subjects were offered snacks as part of their post-study lunch, the subjects whose test showed those that liked sweets ate a few more delicious  Chips Ahoy! chocolate chip cookies.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a more detailed discussion later in the paper, the authors say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn other words, despite expecting the high fat and sugar formulation of the ultra-processed milkshake to produce a synergistic effect on striatal dopaminergic activity (DiFeliceantonio, Coppin et al. 2018, McDougle, de Araujo et al. 2024), our data suggest that any extracellular dopamine responses following milkshake consumption were smaller than those following ingestion of drugs of abuse. Thus, the narrative that ultra-processed foods high in fat and sugar can be as addictive as drugs of abuse based on their potential to elicit an outsized dopamine response in brain reward regions was not supported by our data.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bottom Line:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

UPFs are not addictive \u2014<\/strong> they do not produce dopamine spikes that consumers seek to repeat as seen with addictive drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(but they may be delicious!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

# # # # #<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author\u2019s Comment:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kudos to Dr. Hall and his group for publishing a \u201cnegative result\u201d paper.\u00a0 They expected and desired to show the UPFs were just addictive as opioids and other drugs of abuse but found that they were not.\u00a0 In fact, they did not produce measurable amounts of dopamine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I extend these kudos even if the paper was published as a matter of policy \u2013 registered NIH studies completed must be written up and published \u2013 I\u2019m pretty sure of this (not positive).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suspect that the\u00a0War on Food<\/em>\u00a0will not end now despite that fact that the battle against \u201caddictive UPFs produced by nasty evil international corporations\u201d has been dealt a death blow by real science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not to say that some foods are not \u201chabit forming\u201d \u2013 humans like pleasant experiences \u2013 they like things that taste good and can form\u00a0unhealthy repetitive eating habits<\/em>.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Think of those eating giant bags of chips, guzzling orange soda, while binge watching years of old Star Trek episodes. (No, I don\u2019t mean\u00a0you<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

# # # # #<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Kevin Hall, at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), has recently been conducting \u201crandomized clinical trials to study how diets high in ultra-processed food may cause obesity and other chronic diseases\u201d, and was the lead author of a study, Hall et al. (2019) titled \u201cUltra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":372698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691834142,691834141,691834139,691834140,691834138],"class_list":{"0":"post-372690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-energy-intake","9":"tag-nih-studies","10":"tag-u-s-national-institutes-of-health-nih","11":"tag-ultra-processed-diets-cause-excess-calorie-intake","12":"tag-ultra-processed-foods-upfs","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/0Firefly-war-on-food-44418-scaled-1.webp?fit=1200%2C686&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1yX8","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":366302,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=366302","url_meta":{"origin":372690,"position":0},"title":"Modern Scientific Controversies: The War on Food: Part 4","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"16\/02\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Remember, UPFs does not mean \u201cjunk food\u201d.\u00a0 UPFs does not mean sugary sodas, hamburgers, French fries, candy and snacks.\u00a0 Those are a concern in modern societies, but, while they are often included in UPFs, they are not the core of UPFs.\u00a0","rel":"","context":"In \"Epidemiology\"","block_context":{"text":"Epidemiology","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=epidemiology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Firefly-war-on-food-44418-scaled-1.webp?fit=1200%2C686&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Firefly-war-on-food-44418-scaled-1.webp?fit=1200%2C686&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Firefly-war-on-food-44418-scaled-1.webp?fit=1200%2C686&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Firefly-war-on-food-44418-scaled-1.webp?fit=1200%2C686&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Firefly-war-on-food-44418-scaled-1.webp?fit=1200%2C686&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":342352,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=342352","url_meta":{"origin":372690,"position":1},"title":"What Junk Nutrition Science Looks Like","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"08\/09\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to the New York Times, in an article in the EAT section, we have the news that \u201cthose who consumed the most ultraprocessed foods were 11 percent more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and 16 percent more likely to develop coronary heart disease during the study period\u201d. The article\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"CHD\"","block_context":{"text":"CHD","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=chd"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/zslide-16-1024.webp?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/zslide-16-1024.webp?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/zslide-16-1024.webp?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/zslide-16-1024.webp?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":362705,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=362705","url_meta":{"origin":372690,"position":2},"title":"Modern Scientific Controversies: The War on Food: Part 3 \u2014 UPFs: What Are They Measuring?","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"19\/01\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"According to the American Medical Association, in an article that is part of JAMA\u2019s \u201cWhat Doctors Wish Patients Knew\u2122\u201d series: \u201cResearch has shown that diets high in ultraprocessed foods are linked to more than 30 health conditions, according to an umbrella review of meta-analyses that was published in The BMJ.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American Medical Association\"","block_context":{"text":"American Medical Association","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=american-medical-association"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/0d4331017934843.562c108350ee7-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/0d4331017934843.562c108350ee7-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/0d4331017934843.562c108350ee7-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/0d4331017934843.562c108350ee7-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/0d4331017934843.562c108350ee7-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":360523,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=360523","url_meta":{"origin":372690,"position":3},"title":"Modern Scientific Controversies: The War on Food: Part 1","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"05\/01\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a new entry to a series-of-many which have discussed ongoing scientific controversies, a specific type of which are often referred to in the science press and elsewhere as \u201cWars\u201d \u2013 for instance \u00a0The Monarch Wars, The Meat Wars, The Obesity Epidemic, The Salt Wars, The War in Sugar\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"British Medical Journal (BMJ)\"","block_context":{"text":"British Medical Journal (BMJ)","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=british-medical-journal-bmj"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/0d4331017934843.562c108350ee7.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/0d4331017934843.562c108350ee7.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/0d4331017934843.562c108350ee7.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/0d4331017934843.562c108350ee7.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/0d4331017934843.562c108350ee7.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":361521,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=361521","url_meta":{"origin":372690,"position":4},"title":"Modern Scientific Controversies The War on Food: Part 2, What are UPFs?","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"11\/01\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"What are Ultraprocessed Foods?\u00a0\u00a0The UPF literature gives long and confused definitions, but in almost every case, falls back on the definition provided by Carlos A. Monteiro\u00a0(and his colleagues In\u00eas Castro, Renata Bertazzi-Levy, Rafael Claro and Geoffrey Cannon) in\u00a0his\u00a0original work in 2009 on the subject\u00a0titled: \u201cNutrition and health. 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