Having trouble resisting the donuts and other processed goodies in the office day in and day out? Well, it might not be your fault. Turns out, those donuts may be just as addictive as cocaine or cigarettes.
A growing body of intensive medical research in the US suggests that processed foods and sugary snacks can hijack our brains in ways that resemble addictions to cocaine and other drugs. In fact, there have been more than 28 independent studies and papers on food addiction published in the U.S.
But the most recent study by the University of Florida in Gainesville, was the real shocker. The findings were so stark, it was hard to ignore the obvious links between junk foods and food addiction.
“The data is so overwhelming the field has to accept it,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain.”
Brain scans of obese people and compulsive eaters, revealed disturbances in brain reward circuits similar to those experienced by drug addicts. The decision-making area of the brain (the orbit frontal cortex) released a surge of dopamine as they looked at high-fat foods…the same response cocaine addicts have when shown cocaine!
And that’s just one study. In 2010, Princeton University studied whether lab rats could become addicted to a 10 percent solution of sugar water, about the same percentage of sugar contained in most soft drinks.
An occasional drink caused no problems for the lab animals. Yet the researchers found dramatic effects when the rats were allowed to drink sugar-water every day. Over time they drank “more and more and more” while eating less of their usual diet, said Nicole Avena, who began the work as a graduate student at Princeton and is now a neuroscientist at the University of Florida.
The animals also showed withdrawal symptoms, including anxiety, shakes and tremors, when the effect of the sugar was blocked with a drug. The scientists, moreover, were able to determine changes in the levels of dopamine in the brain, similar to those seen in animals on addictive drugs. (Bloomberg)
We might not completely understand it, or know how to cure it, but food addiction is real. In the U.S., one third of adults are obese, 17% of kids and teens are obese, and 2/3rds of Americans are overweight. Oh, and those numbers are climbing.
If you haven’t heard of Drew Manning, he’s the trainer who recently decided to make himself fat to better understand what it’s like to lose weight. As a fitness professional, he took pride in his healthy lifestyle and found it really difficult to eat junk food at first. But within just a few weeks of drinking soda everyday, he said he couldn’t go without it! “I definitely feel ‘addicted’ to these foods,” he said. “In the beginning, I did not like soda, but now I can’t go a day without, otherwise I’ll get the headaches, bad mood, etc.” In fact, he says the biggest lesson he’s learned is how intense and real food cravings are. Read more about Drew’s journey here. It’s pretty interesting to learn how quickly people can become addicted to food – even fitness professionals!
Junk food companies are quick to deny the addiction claims. “I have never heard of anyone robbing a bank to get money to buy a candy bar or ice cream or pop,” Indra Nooyi, the chief executive at PepsiCo, told Bloomberg.
Maybe you won’t see people robbing banks for a candy bar any time soon, but the fact is, Americans are getting fatter. The world is getting fatter. We are eating more, moving less, and it’s becoming harder and harder to break the destructive cycle.
If you think you suffer from a food addiction, visit foodaddictsanonymous.org or foodaddicts.org.