More on Sugar Addiction

There’s always new information coming out on eating and weight. Here’s recent evidence which indicates that sugar might very well might be addictive. Study Suggests Sugar May be Addictive, by Amanda Gardner. Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2008 (Health Day News) -- Science is verifying what many overeaters have suspected for a long time: sugar can be addictive. In fact, the sweetener seems to prompt the same chemical changes in the brain seen in people who abuse drugs such as cocaine and heroin. The findings were to be presented Wednesday at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology's annual meeting, in Nashville.
 

“Evidence from an animal model suggests that bingeing on sugar can act in the brain in ways similar to drugs of abuse,” lead researcher Bart Hoebel, professor of psychology at Princeton University, said during a December 4 teleconference. "Drinking large amounts of sugar water when hungry can cause behavioral changes and even neurochemical changes in the brain which resemble changes produced when animals or people take substances of abuse…animals show signs of withdrawal and even long-lasting effects that might resemble craving," he said. Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, added: "The big question has been whether it's just a behavioral thing or is it a metabolic chemical thing, and evidence like this supports the idea that something chemical is going on.” “A ‘sugar addiction’ may even act as a ‘gateway’ to later abuse of drugs such as alcohol,” Hoebel said.
 

The stages of addiction, as defined by the American Psychiatric Association, include bingeing, withdrawal and craving. For the new research, rats were denied food for 12 hours a day, then were given access to food and sugar (25 percent glucose and 10 percent sucrose, similar to a soft drink) for 12 hours a day, for three to four weeks. The bingeing released a surge of the neurotransmitter dopamine each time in the part of the brain involved in reward, the nucleus accumbens. "It's been known that drugs of abuse release or increase the levels of dopamine in that part of the brain," Hoebel said. But it wasn't only the sugar that caused this effect, Hoebel explained -- it was the sugar combined with the alternating schedule of deprivation and largesse (emphasis mine). After three weeks, the rats showed signs of withdrawal similar to those seen when people stop smoking or drinking alcohol or using morphine.

The scientists next blocked the animals' brain endorphins and found withdrawal symptoms, anxiety, behavioral depression and a drop in dopamine levels. In other words, they confirmed a neurochemical link with the rats' behavior. But longer periods of abstinence didn't "cure”  the rats. Instead, there were long-lasting effects with the animals: They ingested more sugar than before, as if they were craving the substance and, without sugar, they drank more alcohol. The researchers speculated that some of these brain changes may also occur in people with eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia, although more research needs to be done to confirm the effects in humans(emphasis mine). "Some say it's easy to lose weight -- you just have to shut your mouth, stop eating so much," Aronne said. "I tell them a good way to overcome global warming is if people made less carbon dioxide by breathing less. Obviously, that's absurd. You can't do it because you feel uncomfortable. "The same thing is true of eating," he added. "Fattening food has an impact on the regulating mechanism that breaks down your sense of fullness, makes you feel an urge to go back and get that blast of sugar and this creates the vicious cycle of weight gain that we're going through."

 

Food for thought, huh?

 

Best,

Karen

Normal Eating web site

Normal Eating talks and workshops

PLEASE NOTE: I encourage you to comment on my blogs and will do my best to address topics/questions you raise in future blogs. I cannot provide individual responses, but encourage you to post your questions and comments on The Food and Feelings Workbook message board at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings.

 

Comments

[Kim]

The global warming analogy is excellent !! I'll have to remember that one for future reference LOL.

In all seriousness though, it makes sense that sugar has addictive qualities, whether physical or mental. I once heard a doctor say that cigarettes have sugar in them because sugar is more addictive than nicotein. I haven't followed this up though.

This study does make sense to me personally because when I quit eating something sugar based, I seem to substitute with some other sugary food.

Thanks for the post Karen.

[Amber]

I'm definitely a sugar addict and have experienced withdrawal symptoms when I have tried to cut it out. Do you think that if we are addicted to sugar we should try and cut it out of our diets? Or do you think that this leads more to abnormal eating? If anything is addictive, aren't we supposed to refrain from using it because it takes more and more of the substance to get the same effect making us use it more?

This is one of the things I struggle with as far as eating normally. I don't know if I should refrain from eating those things that I know I have problems with, because many times I have tried to do so and end up binging on them later.

[DeirdreKM]

I know when I stop eating sugar and refined flour, I get terrible headaches for several days. Sounds like withdrawal symptoms to me!

[Sugar Addiction]

Sugar is a legitimate leisure drug that is communally suitable to use. Sugar">http://www.addiction-treatments.com/addiction/Sugar-Addiction/index.html>Sugar addiction is just like other drug addiction, it destroys a people physical condition over time, decay out their teeth, disturbing normal brain utility, promoting heart disease, and straight causing diabetes and obesity.

http://www.addiction-treatments.com/addiction/Sugar-Addiction/index.html

[adolescent addiction treatment]

What minerals we can get in sugar?

-mj-