- Byproducts of cheese digestion bind to opioid receptors and release dopamine
- Craving this dopamine hit stimulates the craving for cheese and the motivation to find it
- READ MORE: Can Cheese Actually LOWER Cholesterol and Promote Heart Health?
The average American eats about 41 pounds of cheese every year.
It seems people can't get enough of it, and it turns out there is a biological basis for some people's 'addiction' to it.
The byproducts that come from the body digesting cheese – compounds called casemorphins – are opioid-like and attach to opioid receptors in the brain.
This releases endorphins and creates feelings of happiness that can become addictive.
Casemorphins attach to the same receptors in the brain that narcotics like heroin bind to, leading to a flood of the chemical dopamine, the main neurotransmitter in the brain's reward center that fires when people experience pleasure.
Eating good food is a surefire way to increase dopamine levels in the brain, although the level of the chemical released when consuming an extra slice of cheese pizza is much lower than the level released when people use an illegal narcotic.
The rush of feel-good chemicals that comes from eating cheese makes us want more and more
Casomorphins are derived from a protein in cheese called casein. When casein is digested, it is broken down into the smaller casomorphin proteins.
When these connections bind to opioid receptors in the brain they produce endorphins, which act as the body's natural painkillers. This in turn causes the release of dopamine, which gives you feelings of pleasure and satisfaction.
That rush of pleasure we feel when eating cheese is due to dopamine, which reinforces behaviors that drive people to seek that “high” again, leaving us wanting more.
The powerful neurotransmitter has played a role in people's eating habits since the dawn of humanity, when it fired into the brain when people encountered a food source, helping them remember where to find it later.
Researchers studying the addictive properties of cheese also point to its high fat content.
The human body is naturally more likely craving for fatty foodsa function of evolution that helped early humans seek out high-calorie foods to survive in times when nutrition was scarce.
A 2015 study in the journal PLOS One asked 500 people which food they found most difficult to stop eating. Fatty foods, including cheese, as well as cakes and ice cream, topped the list.
Dr. Neal Barnard, a physician at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, who wrote an entire book on cheese addiction called The Cheese Trap, said while the casomorphins that attach to opioid receptors in a similar way to morphine, “they're not as strong.”
He said: 'The strongest of the casomorphins is called morphiceptin. And it has about one-tenth the brain-binding power of pure morphine… So maybe call it 10 percent, something like that. So it's not enough to get you arrested, but it's more than enough that someone actually likes cheese.”