GAINZZZ

Via dri in the sidebar, scientists say that carbohydrates are as addictive as cigarettes and should be redefined as drugs.

Okay so that's too hype-y and if you take them literally it's fascist.

But the general idea that carbohydrates have a powerful drug-like effect is true enough. I eat a lot of low-carb stuff. You miss the carbs even when the taste is about the same. Carbs light up the brain with a sense of satisfaction and wellness that doesn't have anything to do with taste or the pleasure of eating. I know when I indulge a lot of carbs, I feel a real sense of stupor. (And later, a carb hangover where I say, "Never again." But that's always a lie.)

EXCLUSIVE: Donuts, cereal and pizza should be redefined as DRUGS: Scientists say highly processed foods are just as addictive and harmful as CIGARETTES

Processed foods are as addictive and dangerous as cigarettes, experts say

Researchers say the products meet the same addiction standards as nicotine

The foods have been linked to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other issues

The pair of scientists is calling for restrictions on the marketing of the foods

By MANSUR SHAHEEN DEPUTY HEALTH EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 13:48 EST, 10 November 2022 | UPDATED: 10:55 EST, 11 November 2022

So this is food fascism and I don't support it. Dr. Robert Lustig talks like this... and then I tune out.

But again, yeah, very dense carbohydrate food is something we were not designed to eat. There's nothing like that occurring in nature.

Highly-processed foods should be reclassified as drugs because they are as addictive and harmful as cigarettes, scientists argue.

Researchers claim items like donuts, sugary cereals and pizza meet the meet official criteria that established cigarettes as a drug in the 1990s.

These include causing compulsive use and mood altering affects on the brain, and having properties or ingredients that reinforce addiction or trigger cravings.

Ultra processed foods - which also include things like soda, chips, pastries and candies - contain high amounts of unnatural flavorings, preservatives and sweeteners.

These properties give them their delicious flavor -- but also make them high in calories, fat, sugar or salt, which raise the risk of obesity and other chronic illnesses.

Researchers led by Dr Ashley Gearhardt, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, told DailyMail.com these foods are more like a drug because of how distant they are in taste and texture from natural foods.

'They are industrial produced substances designed to deliver sugar and fat,' Dr Alexandra DiFeliceantonio, a health behaviors research professor at Virginia Tech University, said.

'They are not foods anymore. These are these products that have been really well designed to deliver addictive substances.'

Gary Taubes' books The Case Against Sugar and Why We Get Fat are both really good.

I always mention this: they did the same thing with to "prove" that it wasn't sugar that causes weight gain, but fat, and that it wasn't sugar and carbohydrate that causes heart attacks, but fat, that they did to "prove" global warming: they convened a conference with handpicked "experts," all of whom were already known to support these hypotheses, then they... took a vote, then presented that vote to the world of proof of the Fat-Diet Hypothesis of heart disease, and also, proof that sugar and carbohydrates had nothing to do with heart disease.

They had a vote, you see.

Proof!

And then the government enforced this "consensus view" on the public and pressured industry to make "heart healthy" foods low in fat but very, very high in sugar and carbohydrate.

These books are lot more exciting -- infuriating, to be precise -- than you'd expect books about the history of nutrition to be.

Study: Men have stronger sex drives than women.

Really?

Perhaps to no one's surprise, new research has determined that men do, in fact, have a much stronger sex drive than women.

After reviewing more than 200 studies, investigators "found that men consistently report a higher sex drive," said study author Julius Frankenbach, a doctoral student of psychology at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany.

En masse, the research showed that men say they spend considerably more time thinking about sex, fantasizing about sex, feeling sexual desire and masturbating, compared to women.

"What did surprise us," said Frankenbach, "was that the finding was consistent across countries, age groups, ethnicities or sexual orientations. Men having a higher sex drive than women seems to be a quite universal psychological pattern."

But they have to find a way to cast doubt on this, to support (some) women's assertions than "women's sex drives are just as strong as men's."

But there's a hitch. When discussing one's own sexual proclivities, are people always honest?

"Sexuality is a sensitive topic," Frankenbach acknowledged. "So we also considered the possibility that people's self-reports are not fully accurate. There was some evidence for such inaccurate responses in our data."

Still, the researchers pointed out exceptions to the rule.

Frankenbach said between 24% and 29% of women appear to have a higher sex drive than the "average" man.

So, while on average men may have a stronger sex drive than women, "there are plenty of women who are more into sex than many men," he added.

Ronald Reagan once said, "It's true that hard work never killed anyone, but I figure, why take the chance?"

Wise man. Other people quote "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" as the most inspirational Reagan quote. For me, it's the one about being lazy as a general principle.

Turns out Reagan was wiser than we even knew.

A recent study that scanned people's brains at different points in their work day found high-demand tasks which require intense, constant concentration can lead to build-up of a potentially toxic chemical called glutamate.

Normally used to send signals from nerve cells, in large quantities glutamate alters the performance of a brain region involved in planning and decision making, the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC).

Science has shown time again that mental fatigue has real effects. There are numerous studies which show that court decisions can depend on how fatigued the judge is.

...

The new study, from Paris Brain Institute (ICM), investigated whether cognitive functions such as focus, memory, multitasking, and problem-solving can cause fatigue of the LPFC, which influences the decisions we make when we cross things off our list.

The scientists tested people who were sat in front of computers performing tasks that required high-demand focus, and another group that performed low-demand focus tasks.

I'm going to spare you the details and cut to the shocking findings: People who did a day's work of high-demand work at a computer had a build-up of glutamate and, in a test after work, had less focus and energy and patience and spent less time making decisions.

In other words, being mentally exhausted from work mentally exhausted them and they didn't want to do any more mentally-exhausting work.

Seriously we're paying people for this? What the hell?

It's not even a new finding that fatigue is caused by a build-up of a fatigue-causing chemical -- sleepiness is brought on by the accumulation of adenosine in the brain, which builds up in the brain throughout the working day.

Speaking of sleep, if you're taking melatonin to go to sleep, you might want to reconsider.

A melatonin supplement appears to be effective at helping people who take it fall asleep, but it may also cause nightmares and potentially disrupt the body's natural clock when used inappropriately, experts told UPI.

"We are seeing more cases of sleep problems and insomnia since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and many of these patients are turning to melatonin to help," sleep expert Brant P. Hasler told UPI in a phone interview.

"Generally, melatonin is safe, but it needs to be used appropriately, and I'm not sure that's happening across the board," said Hasler, an associate professor of psychiatry, psychology and clinical and translational science at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Sleep and Circadian Science.

This means understanding what the supplement does. It helps users fall asleep, but won't help them stay asleep, Hasler said.

"Melatonin is called the hormone of darkness because it has the opposite effects of light on our internal clocks" -- meaning, it essentially tells the body that it is time to sleep, he said.

Melatonin supplements are designed to mimic the effects of the hormone, boosting its levels within the body to induce sleep, said Jeannie K. Lee, assistant dean and associate professor of pharmacy at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

But because the supplements are designed to boost the body's natural approach to sleep, they also can alter it in ways with which users may not be comfortable.

Besides not helping people stay asleep, melatonin can also cause nightmares.

Andrew Huberman warned against taking exogenous (outside) melatonin, because your body produces its own melatonin, and if you're taking outside melatonin, especially in the huge "supraphysiologic" doses usually available in pills, will reduce your body's ability to make its own melatonin. I think I've heard either him or someone else say the most melatonin you should take is 0.5 mg -- which is much less than a standard dose. It usually comes in pills of 1 mg, 3 mg, 5 mg, or even 10 mg. And he points out that a survey of different pills found that the actual amount of melatonin found in commercially available pills ranged from 15% of the listed dosage, to 400% of the listed dosage.

He especially warns against taking it if you're still in puberty, because it suppresses puberty. But it probably also continues regulating other hormones in adulthood.

For a while I was cutting 1 mg pills in half to get 0.5 mg but I decided it wasn't worth the hassle.

Huberman offers his own preferred "sleep stack" of supplements here. One of the supplements is found in chamomile, so all of the badasses out there are already well-stocked with that.

I've been working on No-Handed Push-Ups. Maybe we can have a Blog Challenge to see who is the first to do a proper one.

So, what are yo' GAINZZZ? Got any PLANZZZ or PROJEXXX? Anyone doing NaNoWriMo? Or NoNuNo?

posted by Ace at 06:53 PM

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