Day 5 Depression

ninerbuff

jasmineboyle wrote: »

OK small AP lesson. For all those out there whobelieve that sugar is not an addiction I challenge you to look up the definition of an addiction and what it does to your brain. You will find that the addictions to cocaine and alcohol have the same effect on your brain that sugar does and when you grow up with having a constant influx of sugar you tend to have the same reaction as an adequate this is been scientifically proven and can have an addiction.I also find it interesting that a place where you are supposed to get support can have so much negativity.

Sugar isn't an addiction. It's HIGHLY PALATABLE. You actually NEED it in the body for energy conversion. Mono and disaccharides are the simplest forms used in the body.
An addicted person CAN'T moderate their addiction. You're already moderating sugar from fruits and vegetables. Yes, it's there's still sugar in them.
The "feel good" people get from eating also translates to things like watching a movie they love, dancing, petting animals, etc. I wouldn't necessarily call those "addictions".
As for support, you're not agreeing with what may opined or proved, but that doesn't equal non support. Non support would be you not getting any responses at all.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

rkcampbell

Looking at your diary, if you are truly trying to "detox" from the added sugars, you need to get rid of more. You have had at least 2 types of sugary cereals as well as added white sugar to smoothies and coffee. I understand the compulsion. I personally include sweets in moderation, but it took time for me to learn how to do that. Do your best to stay strong and keep your will power. I know it's hard. You can do it, though if you truly commit to it. (feel free to add me as a friend if you need some support)

ninerbuff

ninerbuff wrote: »

jasmineboyle wrote: »

OK small AP lesson. For all those out there whobelieve that sugar is not an addiction I challenge you to look up the definition of an addiction and what it does to your brain. You will find that the addictions to cocaine and alcohol have the same effect on your brain that sugar does and when you grow up with having a constant influx of sugar you tend to have the same reaction as an adequate this is been scientifically proven and can have an addiction.I also find it interesting that a place where you are supposed to get support can have so much negativity.

Sugar isn't an addiction. It's HIGHLY PALATABLE. You actually NEED it in the body for energy conversion. Mono and disaccharides are the simplest forms used in the body.
An addicted person CAN'T moderate their addiction. You're already moderating sugar from fruits and vegetables. Yes, it's there's still sugar in them.
The "feel good" people get from eating also translates to things like watching a movie they love, dancing, petting animals, etc. I wouldn't necessarily call those "addictions".
As for support, you're not agreeing with what may opined or proved, but that doesn't equal non support. Non support would be you not getting any responses at all.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

More info for evidence.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10141546/is-sugar-a-drug-addiction-explained#latest

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Digbysmom

Jasmine, regarding your sugar addiction. Researchers at Yale University recently revealed that dramatic falls in blood sugar occur after eating "bad" carbohydrates, i.e., sugar, sweets, etc. This drop in blood sugar affects the part of the brain controlling impulse. This leads to a loss of self-control and subsequent cravings. A sugar addiction or uncontrolled craving could have a medical basis, i.e., under active thyroid. You might want to set up an appointment with your doctor for a physical and see if he or she can help you.
Best of luck,
Pam

ninerbuff

Digbysmom wrote: »

Jasmine, regarding your sugar addiction. Researchers at Yale University recently revealed that dramatic falls in blood sugar occur after eating "bad" carbohydrates, i.e., sugar, sweets, etc. This drop in blood sugar affects the part of the brain controlling impulse. This leads to a loss of self-control and subsequent cravings. A sugar addiction or uncontrolled craving could have a medical basis, i.e., under active thyroid. You might want to set up an appointment with your doctor for a physical and see if he or she can help you.
Best of luck,
Pam

Would like a link to this research. Not a post from someone claiming it, but the actual research abstract or paper.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

williamwj2014

Hate when depression begins to creep in..it began to creep in on me a week ago but I'm fine now. I got over it by focusing on my goals which for me are fitness related which I guess helps keep myself from straying into a negative thinking pattern since when your running/lifting you can't feel sorry for yourself.

But anyways, I'm unsure what sugar has to do with depression so I can't really comment on it but you could replace it with fruits which are healthier..

Just read your post above..sugar is not an addiction so stop telling yourself it is. You just have a lack of self control.

Digbysmom

Ninerbuff, I don't have a link because I read the journal, not online. If I recall correctly it was an article entitled Appetite by Gherhardt.

Psychgrrl

I do not have this issue myself. I try to limit added sugar due to diabetes running in my family. Just like I limit saturated fat due to heart disease in my family and watch my sodium due to high blood pressure in my family. Personally, I don't feel it's my place to say whether or not someone I only know through an internet message board is addicted to anything or not. One of the studies below lists an instrument used in food addiction diagnosis. OP, if you're depressed and struggling with this, maybe seeking professional support would give you some tools to help you adapt.

Here's some recent peer-reviewed research to add to the conversation. Covers both sides of the debate. My conclusion--there's validity to both arguments.Can we all please play respectfully with one another now?

Sugar addiction: pushing the drug-sugar analogy to the limit. Journal: Current Opinion In Clinical Nutrition And Metabolic Care. 2013 Jul; Vol. 16 (4), pp. 434-9.

• Abstract: Purpose Of Review: To review research that tests the validity of the analogy between addictive drugs, like cocaine, and hyperpalatable foods, notably those high in added sugar (i.e., sucrose).
• Recent Findings: Available evidence in humans shows that sugar and sweetness can induce reward and craving that are comparable in magnitude to those induced by addictive drugs. Although this evidence is limited by the inherent difficulty of comparing different types of rewards and psychological experiences in humans, it is nevertheless supported by recent experimental research on sugar and sweet reward in laboratory rats. Overall, this research has revealed that sugar and sweet reward can not only substitute to addictive drugs, like cocaine, but can even be more rewarding and attractive. At the neurobiological level, the neural substrates of sugar and sweet reward appear to be more robust than those of cocaine (i.e., more resistant to functional failures), possibly reflecting past selective evolutionary pressures for seeking and taking foods high in sugar and calories.
• Summary: The biological robustness in the neural substrates of sugar and sweet reward may be sufficient to explain why many people can have difficultly to control the consumption of foods high in sugar when continuously exposed to them.

The plausibility of sugar addiction and its role in obesity and eating disorders. Journal: Clinical Nutrition. 2010 Jun; Vol. 29 (3), pp. 288-303.

• Background& Aims: To consider the hypothesis that addiction to food, or more specifically sucrose, plays a role in obesity and eating disorders.
• Methods: By considering the relevant literature a series of predictions were examined, derived from the hypothesis that addiction to sucrose consumption can develop. Fasting should increase food cravings, predominantly for sweet items; cravings should occur after an overnight fast; the obese should find sweetness particularly attractive; a high-sugar consumption should predispose to obesity. More specifically predictions based on the hypothesis that addiction to sugar is central to bingeing disorders were developed. Dieting should predate the development of bingeing; dietary style rather than psychological, social and economic factors should be predispose to eating disorders; sweet items should be preferentially consumed while bingeing; opioid antagonists should cause withdrawal symptoms; bingeing should develop at a younger age when there is a greater preference for sweetness.
• Results: The above predications have in common that on no occasion was the behaviour predicted by an animal model of sucrose addiction supported by human studies.
• Conclusion: There is no support from the human literature for the hypothesis that sucrose may be physically addictive or that addiction to sugar plays a role in eating disorders.

Evidence for sugar addiction: behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent, excessive sugar intake. Journal: Neuroscience And Biobehavioral Reviews. 2008; Vol. 32 (1), pp. 20-39.

• Evidence for sugar addiction: Behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent, excessive sugar intake. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews XX(X), XXX-XXX]. The experimental question is whether or not sugar can be a substance of abuse and lead to a natural form of addiction. "Food addiction" seems plausible because brain pathways that evolved to respond to natural rewards are also activated by addictive drugs. Sugar is noteworthy as a substance that releases opioids and dopamine and thus might be expected to have addictive potential. This review summarizes evidence of sugar dependence in an animal model. Four components of addiction are analyzed. "Bingeing," "withdrawal," "craving" and "cross-sensitization" are each given operational definitions and demonstrated behaviorally with sugar bingeing as the reinforcer. These behaviors are then related to neurochemical changes in the brain that also occur with addictive drugs. Neural adaptations include changes in dopamine and opioid receptor binding, enkephalin mRNA expression and dopamine and acetylcholine release in the nucleus accumbens. The evidence supports the hypothesis that under certain circumstances rats can become sugar dependent. This may translate to some human conditions as suggested by the literature on eating disorders and obesity.

Food addiction-diagnosis and treatment. Journal: Psychiatria Danubina. 2015 Mar; Vol. 27 (1), pp. 101-6.

• In this article we summarized the recent research of the food addiction, diagnosis, treatment and prevention, which is carried out in this area. The concept of food addiction is new and complex, but proven to be very important for understanding and solving the problem of obesity. First part of this paper emphasizes the neurological studies, whose results indicate the similarity of brain processes that are being activated during drug abuse and during eating certain types of food. In this context, different authors speak of "hyper-palatable", industrial food, saturated with salt, fat and sugar, which favor an addiction. In the section on diagnostic and instruments constructed for assessing the degree of dependence, main diagnostic tool is standardized Yale Food Addiction Scale constructed by Ashley Gearhardt, and her associates. Since 2009, when it was first published, this scale is used in almost all researches in this area and has been translated into several languages. Finally, distinguish between prevention and treatment of food addiction was made. Given that there were similarities with other forms of addictive behavior, the researchers recommend the application of traditional addiction treatment.