NEW DELHI: Your favourite chips, cookies, soda -- ultra-processed foods -- can trigger addictive behaviours that meet the same clinical criteria used to diagnose substance-use disorders, warned a study.
Researchers argued that failure to recognise this in diagnostic systems is a dangerous oversight with grave consequences for global public health.
"People aren't becoming addicted to apples or brown rice, " said lead author Ashley Gearhardt, Professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, US.
"They're struggling with industrial products specifically engineered to hit the brain like a drug -- rapidly, intensely and repeatedly, " Gearhardt added.