ArticlePloS one2015
Which foods may be addictive? The roles of processing, fat content, and glycemic load.
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 274 papers, 9 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
274 citing papers in PubMed, 9 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 641 citations in OpenAlex.
- A meta-analysis assessing reliability of the Yale Food Addiction Scale: Implications for compulsive eating and obesity.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2025Pooled it
- Association between ultraprocessed foods consumption, eating disorders, food addiction and body image: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2024Pooled it
- Bariatric Surgery and New-Onset Substance Use Disorders: A Systematic review and Meta-analysis.Obesity surgery · 2024Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Ultra-Processed Food Intake Is Associated with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Nutrients · 2023Pooled it
- Ultra-Processed Food Consumption and Adult Mortality Risk: A Systematic Review and Dose-Response Meta-Analysis of 207,291 Participants.Nutrients · 2021Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Obesity in COVID-19 era, implications for mechanisms, comorbidities, and prognosis: a review and meta-analysis.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2021Pooled it
- Ultra-processed food and the risk of overweight and obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2020Pooled it
- Changes in Ultra-Processed Food Intake During a Single-Arm Behavioral Weight Management Intervention: A Secondary Analysis.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2026Trial
- Ultra-Processed Foods Reduction Enhances Clinical Outcomes and Dietary Profiles in Patients With Gingivitis: Results From a Randomised Controlled Trial.Journal of clinical periodontology · 2026Trial
- Food Addiction in Individuals With Overweight and Obesity Undergoing a 12-Week Long Tailored mHealth Weight Loss Intervention.European eating disorders review : the journal of the Eating Disorders Association · 2025Trial
- The impact of visual fidelity on screen-based virtual reality food choices: A randomized pilot study.PloS one · 2025Trial
- A randomized experiment of the effects of food advertisements on food-related emotional expectancies in adults.Journal of health psychology · 2023Trial
- The effects of response inhibition training following binge memory retrieval in young adults binge eaters: a randomised-controlled experimental study.Scientific reports · 2022Trial
- A Brief Motivational Intervention Differentially Reduces Sugar-sweetened Beverage (SSB) Consumption.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2021Trial
- Secondary analysis of YFAS 2.0 symptom counts, impairment/distress, and food addiction severity in adults with overweight/obesity.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2021Trial
- Trial
- Alterations in reward network functional connectivity are associated with increased food addiction in obese individuals.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Trial
214 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesWe propose that highly processed foods share pharmacokinetic properties (e.g. concentrated dose, rapid rate of absorption) with drugs of abuse, due to the addition of fat and/or refined carbohydrates and the rapid rate the refined carbohydrates are absorbed into the system, indicated by glycemic load (GL). The current study provides preliminary evidence for the foods and food attributes implicated in addictive-like eating.
designCross-sectional.
settingUniversity (Study One) and community (Study Two).
participants120 undergraduates participated in Study One and 384 participants recruited through Amazon MTurk participated in Study Two. MEASUREMENTS: In Study One, participants (n = 120) completed the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) followed by a forced-choice task to indicate which foods, out of 35 foods varying in nutritional composition, were most associated with addictive-like eating behaviors. Using the same 35 foods, Study Two utilized hierarchical linear modeling to investigate which food attributes (e.g., fat grams) were related to addictive-like eating behavior (at level one) and explored the influence of individual differences for this association (at level two).
resultsIn Study One, processed foods, higher in fat and GL, were most frequently associated with addictive-like eating behaviors. In Study Two, processing was a large, positive predictor for whether a food was associated with problematic, addictive-like eating behaviors. BMI and YFAS symptom count were small-to-moderate, positive predictors for this association. In a separate model, fat and GL were large, positive predictors of problematic food ratings. YFAS symptom count was a small, positive predictor of the relationship between GL and food ratings.
conclusionThe current study provides preliminary evidence that not all foods are equally implicated in addictive-like eating behavior, and highly processed foods, which may share characteristics with drugs of abuse (e.g. high dose, rapid rate of absorption) appear to be particularly associated with "food addiction."
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.