A report in a recent issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry finds that changing one's usual diet brings on stress--at least in
mice. (Hopefully these weren't the same ones the folks in Bristol
almost drowned.) Tracey L. Bale, Ph.D., of the University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and colleagues found that taking the mice
off a high-fat or high-carbohydrate diet induced anxiety and stress, as
measured by established norms of mouse behavior. "These results
strongly support the hypothesis that an elevated emotional state
produced after preferred-diet reduction provides sufficient drive to
obtain a more preferred food in the face of [adverse] conditions,
despite availability of alternative calories in the safer
environment," the diet researchers concluded moments before angrily
overturning their laboratory's 400-pound vending machine in order
to free a snagged bag of Fritos.
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