Ice cream derails brain chemistry designed to control over-eating.Staying slim and sexy is challenging enough, without dealing with fat molecules doing an end run on our brains, warning them to ignore the appetite-suppression signals from leptin and insulin, hormones involved in weight regulation.

In what sounds a bit like a dopamine hit, but actually has nothing to do with this sexy hormone, one particular type of fat — palmitic acid — is uniquely successful at turning our brains to mush, when we should “just say no” to more food.

Palmitic acid is commonly found in butter, cheese, milk and beef.