Addiction today comes in many forms, whether that be drugs, alcohol, sex, pornography, gaming, gambling, the internet, steroids, prescription medicines or food. The idea humans can become addicted to food is new and only gained attention in recent years. Brain imaging and studies showing the effect of food on our system have highlighted that food has a direct impact on the brain’s reward and pleasure centres and can be as impactful as cocaine and heroin.
Three foods stand out in all the research being sugar, fat and salt. These foods can trigger the rewards signals in a way that they override the signals of satisfaction and been full, resulting in people overeating even when they are no longer hungry.
Compulsive overeating is a behaviour addiction that can trigger pleasure such as with gambling, shopping or others. Food addiction makes people lose control over their eating behaviour and they tend to eat more and more but get less satisfaction out of eating. This might also play an important role in obesity, but food addiction can also occur in normal-weight people. With food addiction, people continue to eat despite any negative consequences like weight gain, fatigue or damaging effect on their relationships. Like people who are addicted to drugs or gambling, with food addiction they have trouble stopping their behaviour, even if they want to or have tried many times to cut back.
Many foods today are like an antidepressant/addictive drug in a plastic wrapping. And the food industry is taking advantage and earning money from people’s addictions – you could compare that to drug dealers.
Let’s look more closely at research emerging that shows the addictive nature of sugar and the potential harm to health that it poses.
Food and Addiction
Global Average Consumption of Sugar in different centuries
1770 – 1.8 kg per year
1800 – 8.0 kg per year
1900 – 40 kg per year
2012 – 80 kg per year
Today an average daily intake of sugar is up to 40 teaspoons!
The introduction of high fructose corn syrup in the 1970’s saw figures more than double and by 1994 saw it more than triple.
Tom’s Story
A 12-year-old with a sugar addiction, osteoporosis, fatty liver disease and diabetes type 2.
Tom is the name I picked to refer to many similar patients I have seen over the years, but this example was my first one. This patient’s history was unusual at the time compared to what medicine had seen in the past. A 12-year-old boy was referred to the local hospital for further investigation of his jaw health by his dentist. Unfortunately, he fell off his bike when he arrived at the hospital, breaking his leg in 3 places. After having his leg operated on, Tom needed to go to the bathroom but because of his extensive leg reconstruction he was bound to the bed and the nurse came with a bedpan. When inserting the bedpan, the nurse heard a crack and Tom yelled out in pain as that action had broken his tail bone. By now alarm bells were ringing; many tests were done, and Tom was diagnosed with fatty liver disease, diabetes type 2 and osteoporosis with a bone density of a 95-year-old osteoporotic woman.
After all his breaks were healed, he was referred to me to investigate what could be the underlying cause of what had happened to Tom plus support with his bone health. During the home visit I took Tom for a walk to give him a break and he started to get very agitated as we were walking. Suddenly he ran off into a nearby café and grabbed a handful of sugar cubes and stuffed them into his mouth. Once done, he came back and continued to walk with me without further agitation. Looking into his history it became very clear that Tom was addicted to sugar.
As a baby, his grandmother who looked after him when his mum went back to work after giving birth, used to add sugar to his formula to settle him when he cried. And sugar continued to be present in his life as he got older with desserts being his main course at meals he ate at home and when going to school, using the money he was given to buy lunch to buy sweets instead.
It took 3-years to rebuild Tom’s body, initially by bridging sugar with very sweet fruit then gradually to less sugary fruit while slowly incorporating vegetables, beans, gluten free grains and wild caught fish, he no longer had diabetes type 2 and fatty liver disease. His bone density came down to that of a 50-year-old male and continued to improve as he consistently looked after his health.
His bones never regained their strength to match his age as the damage was too severe and remained his weakness, but not to a point where he was breaking bones anymore.
Two diseases We Never Saw in Children Before
Type 2 Diabetes and Fatty Liver Disease
Prior to 1980, these two were the diseases of the alcoholics and the elderly. Today we have 30% and rising of children showing some form of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Type 2 Diabetes is now approaching the same incidence as Type 1 Diabetes in Children. Sugar and alcohol are metabolised identically in the liver.
This striking comparison helps us to see how sugar is far more influential on the brain and body than you may think.
When we eat things like flour and sugar, a massive flood of dopamine enters the brain; the same way it does when one ingests drugs like cocaine and heroin. The PET scans above indicate a lack of dopamine receptor activity which, in a healthy body, would register in red.
Dopamine receptors in the brain are responsible for how we experience pleasure. When we ingest these substances, the dopamine flood results in over-stimulation in the brain, which causes a rush of pleasure but also forces the brain to compensate by down-regulating, or thinning-out the active dopamine receptor sites.
This is the basis for cravings and addiction, and a strong contributor to certain neurotransmitter dysfunction and imbalance. In a state of down-regulation, the body naturally compensates by seeking out sudden bursts of potent stimulation in the form of intense cravings for sugar, flour or other addictive substances. This viscous cycle leads to the long-term deficiency of neurotransmitters necessary for healthy mood and mental function.
More about Sugar – see: That Sugar Film and Dr Robert Lustig: The Bitter Truth, Fat Chance ….
