You eat one French fry, then you need another. And another. Soon, the basket of fried sticks is gone–so you start picking away at your friend's fries. Same thing happens with chips and any fatty foods: the munchies.
It's not because you're fat, tubby. It's all a part of nature, and you really can't help yourself: The consumption of such foods leads to the release of marijuana-like chemicals that you naturally want more of, according to an amazing study just released by researchers at UC Irvine.
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“UC Irvine researchers Daniele Piomelli, Nicholas DiPatrizio and colleagues found that fats in these foods make them nearly irresistible and trigger a surprising biological mechanism that likely drives our gluttonous behavior,” read UCI's press release. “The apparent culprit? Natural marijuana-like chemicals in the body called endocannabinoids.”
Endo? Didn't Snoop already sing about this?
Piomelli and pals found that sugar and proteins don't trigger the same reaction, showing you're better off eating a shitload of chocolate than a basket of Fritos. Based on this, the crew thinks a drug can get developed to block the endocannabinoids and beat obesity once and for all. The full study is in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences–look it up!
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