In Europe, I rekindled my love and my addiction to cheese. According to a new study though it might not just be because I love cheese, it could come down to DNA. So now when you can’t help but gorge off the last bits of the cheese plate, you might be able to blame your genetics.

 

A study, published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine, examined why certain foods are more addictive than others. Pizza came out on top of the most addictive food list, no surprise there. There’s a scientific reason we all love pizza, and it’s the cheese.

The study found certain foods are addictive because of the way they are processed. The more processed and fatty the food, the more it was associated with addictive eating behaviors.

 

Cheese happens to be especially addictive because of an ingredient called casein, a protein found in all milk products. During digestion, casein releases opiates called casomorphins.  These casomorphins really play with the dopamine receptors and trigger that addictive element.

 

 

But a recent study found that there could be a deeper genetic reason that goes beyond casomorphins. The study found that it seems cheese triggers the same part of brain as hard drugs. At the University of Cambridge, research scientists have found that those with a gene linked to obesity have a predisposition for high-fat foods, but less of a preference for high-sugar foods. This gene is called MC4R and is said to affect about one in every 1,000 people. This study is the first human study of its kind; past experiments with mice have found similar links between the MC4R gene defect and fatty food preference.

 

A team of 54 volunteers of both lean and obese some with MC4R were offered unlimited portions of chicken korma, followed by an Eton Mess dessert. Eton mess is a traditional English dessert consisting of a mixture of strawberries, broken meringue, and whipped heavy cream. An Eton mess can be made with many other types of summer fruit but strawberries are regarded as more traditional.

 

Next, the volunteers were given three samples of each dish with varying fat and sugar content the curry’s fat content varied from 20 to 60 per cent and the dessert’s sugar content varied from 8 to 54 per cent. The volunteers could eat as much as they wanted after first sampling each item. 

 

The researchers found no significant difference in the amount eaten between individuals, but it was noticed that the 14 people with MC4R ate a significantly higher proportion of the high-fat korma; 95 per cent more than the lean participants and 65 per cent more than those with obesity.

 

Also it was noticed that when it came to the dessert, those who did not have the MC4R liked the high-sugar option significantly less than their counterparts.

 

One of the study’s co-authors, neuroscientist professor Sadaf Farooqi, told MUNCHIES it was important for the different versions of curries and desserts to look and taste the same to participants: “People couldn’t tell the food apart and that was the key thing. They [participants with the MC4R defect] still ate a lot more of the high fat and a lot less of the high sugar which suggests that the brain has ways of picking up levels of nutrients.” She adds that finding these results in humans could have huge implications in tackling the obesity pandemic. “Targeting this pathway, either with medicines or with different types of foods could potentially help people.” She went on to say, “While the study’s findings could be a step forward in the fight against obesity, there are other genes could also have a role to play in weight gain, and their effects on food preference must also be explored: We need to look at those other genes and see if they affect food preference. Even with all the other genes that we’ve found to date, there’s still a lot we don’t know.”

 

So maybe MC4R is the reason I want to go back to Europe and live on a steady diet of various cheeses and pizzas. Ninja Turtle amounts of pizza consumption…