You Can Become Addicted to Ice Cream?

Ice Cream addiction?

New Study Shows Ice Cream Addiction is Real

Uh-oh. A new study shows that people can get addicted to ice cream.

Time to lay off the Ben & Jerry's.

Addiction to ice cream, the study finds, is similar to drug addiction, as It affects the brain's pleasure centers much like drugs.

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Eating a lot of ice cream over time, it seems, makes you desensitized to the effects of the pleasure in the brain, leading you to crave it even more.

Researchers at the Oregon Research Institute conducted a study that involved giving kids chocolate milkshakes and scanning their brains while they consumed it -- the results were similar to drug use.

The results found that the kids craved the shake, but those who ate the most ice cream in recent weeks enjoyed the shake less.

The debate over food addiction is not over, as researcher Kyle S. Burger says "I personally do not say food is addictive. I say energy-dense food, high sugar food, can elicit neural responses during consumption that parallel those seen in drug addiction. So it has addictive-like properties."

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Ashley Gearhardt, a Yale psychology PhD candidate who has conducted similar research, however, says, "Hyper-rewarding foods cause changes in the brain akin to what we see with tobacco and alcohol. That is food addiction."

Are you addicted to ice cream?