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Top headlines
Lead story
It’s happened to everyone: You open a bag of chips, intending to eat just a few, and then suddenly it’s 10 minutes later and your fingers are touching the bottom of the bag. There’s a reason ads for chips tell you that you “can’t stop,” and dare you to try eating “just one.”
But is it actually possible to be addicted to chips the same way a person could be addicted to smoking?
Addiction psychiatrist Claire Wilcox has been following research on disordered eating and food addiction for the past few decades. And she has seen a consensus beginning to emerge that some foods – usually those that are ultra-processed – are in fact addictive for some people in the same way as alcohol or opioids.
This research is important in part because it affects how psychiatrists like Wilcox go about treating patients with food addictions. Their addiction is unique, she writes, in that “unlike nicotine or narcotics, food is something that all people need to survive, so quitting cold turkey isn’t an option.”
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Katie Flood
Contributor Editor
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Research has found that high-sugar, ultraprocessed foods can be addictive for some people.
Doucefleur/iStock via Getty Images Plus
Claire Wilcox, University of New Mexico
A consensus is emerging among scientists that certain foods are addictive for some people. But questions remain about which foods, which people and why.
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Health + Medicine
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Libby Richards, Purdue University
Despite some confusion around changing vaccine guidelines, the CDC still recommends an annual flu shot for everyone 6 months and older.
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Prakash Nagarkatti, University of South Carolina; Mitzi Nagarkatti, University of South Carolina
Researchers are gaining insights into how external factors like air pollutants, diet and medications, and even microbes in the gut interact with regulatory T cells, for better or for worse.
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Science + Technology
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Jessica D. Ayers, Boise State University; Athena Aktipis, Arizona State University
Friendship isn’t a tit-for-tat balance sheet, but that’s how researchers have traditionally defined it. New studies are refining the model to be less about transactions and truer to real life.
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Jie Huang, Missouri University of Science and Technology; Bohong Zhang, Missouri University of Science and Technology; Chen Zhu, Missouri University of Science and Technology; Rex Gerald, Missouri University of Science and Technology
By trapping different molecules, metal-organic frameworks could make for efficient breath sensors that predict lung disease, cancer or diabetes.
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Politics + Society
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Gregory P. Magarian, Washington University in St. Louis
Political violence, made easier to carry out by the proliferation of guns, harms democracy by shifting the field of political disagreement from debate to aggression.
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Education
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Joseph Morales, California State University, Chico
Hispanic-Serving Institutions enroll over 60% of all Hispanic undergraduates in the US and include large schools like Florida International University.
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Ethics + Religion
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Brittany Romanello, University of Arkansas
The church, whose members are often known as Mormons, has grown from a small community to 17.5 million members around the world – but not without some tensions.
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International
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Mireille Rebeiz, Dickinson College
A US-backed diplomatic push is trying to end months of Israeli attacks on Syria with a bilateral security pact. But concluding an agreement may prove a tall order.
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Arts + Culture
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Bran Nicol, University of Surrey
Krasznahorkai is a deeply modernist writer with an unwavering faith in beauty and art.
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