Over the years these junk foods can become a substitute for happiness and will lead bingers to become addicted.

Dr Paul Kenny, a neuroscientist, carried out the research which shows how dangerous high fat and high sugar foods can be to our health .

“You lose control. It’s the hallmark of addiction,” he said.

The researchers believe it is one of the first studies to suggest brains may react in the same way to junk food as they do to drugs.

“This is the most complete evidence to date that suggests obesity and drug addiction have common neuro-biological foundations,” said Paul Johnson, Dr Kenny’s work colleague.

Dr Kenny, who began his research at Guy’s Hospital, London, but now works at Florida’s Scripps Research Institute, divided rats into three groups for his research, due to be published in teh US soon.

One got normal amounts of healthy food to eat. Another lot was given restricted amounts of junk food and the third group was given unlimited amounts of junk, including cheesecake, fatty meat products, and cheap sponge cakes and chocolate snacks.

There were no adverse effects on the first two groups, but the rats who ate as much junk food as they wanted quickly became very fat and started bingeing.

When researchers electronically stimulated the part of the brain that feels pleasure, they found that the rats on unlimited junk food needed more and more stimulation to register the same level of pleasure as the animals on healthier diets.

新研究发现，食用肉加饼，香肠及蛋糕会使你的大脑渴望食用更多富含糖、盐及脂肪的食物。

几年来，垃圾食品成为快乐的代名词，食用大量这类食物使人上瘾。

神经学家保罗·肯尼进行的这项研究表明高脂肪及高糖食物对我们的健康是多么的危险。

他说：“你无法控制自己，这是上瘾的特点。”

研究者认为，这项研究将首次表明大脑对垃圾食品和毒品的反应一模一样。

肯尼博士的同僚保罗·约翰逊说：“这项研究将为证明肥胖及毒瘾具有相同的神经生物学基础提供充分的证据。”

肯尼博士开始在伦敦的盖伊医院进行研究，现在在佛罗里达斯里克普斯研究所工作。研究中他将老鼠分成三组，研究结果很快将在美国发表。

一组老鼠使用正常数量的健康食品，另外一组使用一定数量的垃圾食品，第三组使用无限数量的包括酪饼，肥肉食品，松糕及巧克力的垃圾食品。

前两组没有任何的反作用，而第三组使用大量垃圾食品的老鼠变得非常肥胖，并开始上瘾。

研究人员利用电子仪器刺激大脑感应快乐的部位，他们发现，食用不限量垃圾食品的老鼠要达到食用健康食品老鼠相同的快乐值，需要越来越多的刺激。