Each week I scour the web for a round-up of interesting news stories, scientific studies, and oddities on the web. Ladies and gentlemen, this was the week on willpower:
In this week's issue of Science, a new study on addiction reveals a neurological basis for why some drug-users become addicted and others don't. It's not just how their brains change, but how their brains stop changing. Drug use reliably induces changes to the brain that increase cravings. However, the brains of drug users who do not become addicts apparently mount a defense to these changes. They (and their brains) learn from the negative consequences of drug use. Those who become addicts shows "anaplasticity," or the inability of the brain to adapt and change. The drug-induced changes become more permanent, the cravings more intense, and drug use more rigid, despite the negative consequences of drug use.
Also in addiction news, a study in this month's Addictive Behaviors found that how addicts deal with stress predicts relapse. Those who use avoidance stategies (e.g. distract themselves) have stronger cravings and a higher risk of relapse. Those who use active coping strategies (e.g. think about solutions, ask for help) have a better chance of staying clean.
MSNBC has a report on individuals who got fat, but it wasn't their fault (note: this presumes that for fat most people, it is their fault). The profiled individuals all have health challenges that exposed them to the pervasive contempt and discrimination people who are overweight experience everyday. The article discusses the rising anti-fat bias in our society (which of course makes no logical sense, given overweight and obese is the new norm), as well as what it's like to go from thin to fat.
On the Altantic Monthly's website, Hank Cardello (author of Stuffed: An Insider's Look at Who's Really Making America Fat) takes on the food pyramid -- and suggests throwing it right out the window. He's made this argument before--check out why he believes that the only thing that matters in losing weight or maintaining a healthy weight is calories. My favorite part of the second article? His quoting a Tea Partier from Toledo, Ohio, proclaiming that "being obese is one of our American core values." It was only a matter of time, folks.
Good news for nappers: Fellow Psych Today blogger discusses a new study showing that a nap trumps both caffeine and extra sleep at night for helping you recharge and avoid the aftenoon slump.
Bad news for dieters: Just what we need, an ice cream vending machine that has motion detection sensors. When it senses a person walking by, it beckons to them. As if the call of rocky road weren't loud enough already....
