Some wacky but interesting hypotheses: spankings cause S&M… artificial sweeteners make you fat … why smart people do reckless things …

The result of spankings
Kids who are regularly spanked grow up into adults who are aroused by sadomasochistic sex. They are also the group “most likely to forgo condoms, coerce their partners, and cross the line between consensual sex and date rape. “When a child is repeatedly hit by his parents, “love and violence get linked’ in the brain, ‘and that gets acted out as sex.”¹

Artificial sweeteners (may) make you fat
“Rats fed a steady diet of sugar substitutes were hungrier and gained more weight than rats that ate sugary food, a new study has found … This may be why “people who drink a lot of diet soda have higher rates of obesity, diabetes, and other metabolic problems … “It appears that artificial sweeteners confuse the which, which is programmed to associate sweet tastes with calories consumed; when we repeatedly eat something sweet that provides little or no calories … we brake that connections, and our confused bodies keep seeking more food. Also the rats that frequently ate sugar substitutes didn’t have the metabolic increase that usually follows eating a meal so they burned fewer calories … Combine a larger appetite with a slower metabolism and you have a formula for severe weight gain.”²

Why smart people do reckless things
“In the 1990’s, Israeli researches identified what they thought of as a risk gene, a bit of behavioral coding that changes the re-absorption of the neurotransmitter dopamine, making it easier for some people to respond to stress or anxiety. The higher your threshold for those feelings, the higher your tolerance for risk. But that accounts for only 10% of thrill-seeking behavior. A later University of Delaware study suggested that another neurotransmitter, serotonin, plays a role as well. The chemical helps inhibit impulsive behavior, and it could be in short supply in people who take chances.” Some scientists point to high testosterone levels combined with low monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which regulates dopamine … That would explain why males seem more likely to take chances … Not all risks have to be serious ones … [however] high-sensation seekers tend to underestimate the risk … Humans habituate to thrills, which means needing ore and ore to get the same buzz … You want to re-create the high so you up the ante …”³

.¹Study by sociologist Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire with 14,000 college students. Reported in the Concord, New Hampshire, Concord Monitor as “Spankings color sex lives” and noted in The Week, Health & Science, “The roots of S&M,” March 28, 2008

²Susan Swithers quoted in HealthDay and noted in The Week, Health & Science, “How artificial sweetners make you fat,” February 29, 2008

³ “The Science of Risk-Taking. Why smart people do reckless things,” Time, March 24, 2008, by Kate Stinchfield..