According to a study by the University of Michigan, certain fatty and processed foods like cheese and cake share characteristics with addictive drugs due to their ability to rapidly stimulate dopamine receptors in the brain and trigger feelings of reward and pleasure. The study found that pizza was the most addictive food based on responses to the Yale Food Addiction Scale. Cheese in particular was highlighted as highly addictive due to the way its ingredients react in the body.

1. According to a study by the University of Michigan, cheese has some of the same characteristics as addictive drugs.
Photo Credit: Newsday / Rebecca Cooney
Daydreaming about your dessert? Noticing that you have a lot more crackers than cheese left
on the platter? Turns out that there is scientific evidence for your food addiction.
According to the authors of a study published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine, fatty,
processed foods such as cake and cheese are the drugs of the food world.
About 120 participants in the study completed the Yale Food Addiction Scale, a survey designed
to uncover if someone has a specific food addiction, and of the 35 foods included – pizza
topped the list as most addictive. The addictive foods in the study, conducted by the University
of Michigan, shared some of the same characteristics as addictive drugs, such as rapid rate of
absorption.
The most addictive foods were processed to have an artificially high level of both sugar and fat
(which rarely occurs naturally), the study said.
Registered dietitian Cameron Wells specifically pointed to cheese as a major culprit (hence
pizza's reign over the list in the study) because of the way ingredients in cheese react when
broken down. They “really play with the dopamine receptors and trigger that addictive element"
by triggering reward and pleasure responses, she told Mic.com.
While it may not be an excuse to grab that second slice of pizza (or the third, or ...), it is a
sound, scientific reason for wanting to do so.