Food Addiction!

Acg67

Decent summary of the current thoughts around this from a science perspective. Too bad they didn't see to delve into why sugar addicts can eat sugar in moderation when they say they can't.

http://evolvinghealth.wordpress.com/2014/04/29/are-you-really-addicted-to-food/

It’s certainly tempting to think of some foods as being addictive. Buttered popcorn and doughnuts with sprinkles come to mind. These highly palatable, sugar- and fat-stuffed goodies are clearly “junk foods,” but does unrestrained splurging on them really a food junkie make?

An Internet search would lead you to believe so—not only that “food addiction” is real, but also in offering ways to recognize signs and symptoms, take self-diagnosis “quizzes”, and going as far as giving advice on treatment of our sugar- and fat-hijacked brains and their dopamine-reward systems.

“When you google ‘food addiction,’ Fox News gives you not one but seven ways to beat it,” said James Hill, professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus, in a symposium on Monday, April 28, in San Diego at Experimental Biology. “The concept of food addiction is becoming widely accepted, but a critical evaluation is needed.”

In a earlier interview with ASN, the session’s co-chair Michael Kelley, Senior Principal Scientist for the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, said that the goal of the RIS was to have a comprehensive session that evaluated “where we stand” on the issues such as terminology used, mechanism of action, methodologies, and outcome measures. “Central to the review will be questions of what current technologies tell us, what they are not capable of telling us, and where we should go from there,” he said.

The symposium took place at the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) Scientific Sessions and Annual Meeting. ASN’s Nutrition Translation Research Interest Section (RIS) organized the session in collaboration with ILSI NA.

The evidence for food addiction

Providing some support for the food addiction model are studies in animals, some functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, and studies that have used the Yale Food Addiction Scale that was created through applying the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) criteria.

Calling the food addiction model “conceivable” is neuroscientist Kent Berridge, of University of Michigan, who studies how the brain reacts to sensory pleasures. He does this through a series of animal experiments using drug microinjections and lasers, including comparing facial expressions of (cute!) rats and human babies in response to bitter and sweet.

Using these techniques, Berridge’s lab has been able to map “hedonic hotspots” in the brain, where patterns of firing neurons signal a ‘liking’ response to sensory pleasure such as to that of sweetness. “The brain sees a difference between ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’,” he said. And it’s a major difference. “‘Liking’ for food exists, but the brain system for ‘wanting’ is much larger, more robust, and complex.”

The more intense ‘wanting’ of a reward, or what Berridge calls incentive salience, is of a psychological nature, for example, and doesn’t have to necessarily provide sensory pleasure. This may be because unlike pleasure ‘liking’, reward ‘wanting is driven by dopamine.

Berridge also highlighted the work of Brookhaven National Lab’s Dr. Gene-Jack Wang and colleagues who showed that dopamine reward circuitry in the brains of obese binge eaters and drug addicts had some similarities. For example, obese binge eaters have a higher dopamine release in their brains in response to food cues.

Research neurologist Nicole Avena, of Columbia University’s New York Obesity Research Center, said these food cues are all around us in our modern environment in the form of highly palatable foods rich in sugars and fats that taste good. It’s “hedonic eating” versus eating to gain calories to survive. “People eat because they want to eat, not because they have to eat. They eat because they’re bored or stressed,” she said.

That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re all addicted, but that some foods can lead to addictive-like behaviors.

Providing some support for the food addiction model are studies in sugar-bingeing rats from Avena’s lab. She said that they found that while increases in dopamine tend to fade in response to their regular chow, the opposite happens with exposure to sugar. The dopamine release rises. A similar effect was also seen in response to fat by another lab. “When we give rats sugar, they overeat the sugar. They will also develop a pattern where they consume more and more in a month,” she said.

Those sugar-bingeing rats also work harder to get to cues associated with eating more sugar, even if it means getting shocked with electricity. They are also more likely to consume alcohol and show signs of anxiety withdrawal symptoms, she said.

Although there is little evidence of humans having withdrawal symptoms in response to sugar or fat, Avena said, the work of Yale psychologist Ashley Gearhardt and colleagues have evaluated neural correlates of addiction through fMRI images. In addition, they created the Yale Food Addiction Scale and have used it in studies to identify those with possible food addiction-like disorders.

The evidence against food addiction

Unconvinced of the validity of the Yale Food Addiction Scale, however, was psychiatrist Hisham Ziauddeen, of the University of Cambridge. Reminding that the DSM-IV was designed specifically for abuse of substances such as drugs that lead to tolerance and withdrawal, he said, “The DSM-IV criteria was never set up for a substance that you need.”

Ziauddeen also said that the evidence from the rat-brain studies and brain imaging scans weren’t very useful for obesity. The animal models don’t translate well to humans, for example, and the clinical overlap is unconvincing. By the same logic one could argue that water was addictive because it acted in the same neurons as cocaine.

In addition, the classification for considering which foods would be addictive and not is too “broad and imprecise”. “Consider the problems,” he said. What would be regulated or implemented? Would cheesecake be illegal? Or, how would cheesecake be available from one population but restricted from another?

Neurologist Dr. Miguel Alonso-Alonso, of Harvard University, dug deeper into the problems with using fMRI studies to support the food addiction model. “Money, sex, and art activate the same regions,” he said.

There are also differences in the way food activates the brain versus drugs. There are even differences depending on, say, one peels an apple in a real-life setting versus in an fMRI setting. There’s also a problem of treatment. What would it be? “From diet studies, we already know that abstinence diets or rigid restriction diets are likely to fail,” he said.

]What is likely a better strategy, Alonso-Alonso said are interventions targeting “cognitive control” (e.g. physical activity, mindfulness) to promote healthy eating and maintaining a healthy weight.

Closing out the symposium, biostatistician David Allison of University of Alabama offered his thoughts on how to move forward on neurocognition research. He warned against being “blinded” by a new technology like brain imaging that can appear “fascinating and cool” To be valuable and valid, he said, there needs to be meaningful questions, valid designs, proper analyzation of the data, and proper interpretation of results. “If we want to know if X exists, then we have to define what X is,” Allison said. “It’s important to have clear criteria. What is ‘food addiction’? How do we do research well?”

Mostly what we need is “sound thinking,” Allison said. One example of sound thinking about fMRIs and food addiction, he said, is found in an article written by Yale Prevention Research Center’s own Dr. David Katz:

“… a paper by Gearhardt and colleagues in the Archives of General Psychiatry shows that those individuals scoring higher on a scale for “food addiction” have more intense responses in the reward circuitry of the brain, revealed using functional MRI scans, than counterparts scoring lower.

The media attention this study has generated would suggest that it delivers an epiphany. But I think the case is just as strong that it delivers a tautology: those who report receiving a stronger, more irresistible reward message from their brain in response to food have a stronger, more irresistible reward response in their brain in response to food.
With or without brain scans, we knew that food affects the brain.”

ndj1979

in...to review later...

Holly_Roman_Empire

In to read and follow later. It's busy at work right now.

Jestinia

I just wish the English language had a word for addiction with milder connotations.

As in: I won't rob a bank for this cookie, but I'll buy it instead of saving a dollar toward next year's vacation.

And: I wouldn't risk my life for this ice cream, but I know eating too much of it may eventually cause me health problems.

Or: If this 1000 calorie cheeseburger and 800 calorie large fries were illegal, I wouldn't risk jail sitting here eating it right now, but I am risking busting out of my favorite jeans.

DemetraDawn

I just wish the English language had a word for addiction with milder connotations.

As in: I won't rob a bank for this cookie, but I'll buy it instead of saving a dollar toward next year's vacation.

And: I wouldn't risk my life for this ice cream, but I know eating too much of it may eventually cause me health problems.

Or: If this 1000 calorie cheeseburger and 800 calorie large fries were illegal, I wouldn't risk jail sitting here eating it right now, but I am risking busting out of my favorite jeans.

Yes. This.

bc2ct

If we are in fact biologically inclined to seek out high fat, high calorie foods (and it makes sense that we would be driven to these things because fat stores would help us survive long periods of abstinence from food) then we might all be considered "food addicts" or "sugar addicts". Our body's basic neurological and chemical structures make us prefer sustenance that fattens us up and gives us energy. It is when people start to use these biological explanations to justify their behaviour in a world of plenty that real problems start to arise. The luxury of civilization and the progress in technology that it brings is that we can more easily fulfill our "basic biological" impulses and spend our free time doing other things rather than spending all that free time mindlessly pursuing the things that we are biologically inclined towards (like locating and scarfing fatty food, procreating, etc.)

nancy10272004

In because my ED therapist doesn't think there is any such thing as a food addiction but one of my doctors does. His reason being that alcohol breaks down into sugar and alcoholism runs deep in my family so sugar is my alcohol.

Fiercely_Me

Nothing new. Research inconsistencies have existed in "food addiction" research for quite some time.

In regards to the similarities between eating-related disorders and substance use disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) states:

"Some individuals with disorders described in this chapter report eating-related symptoms resembling those typically endorsed by individuals with substance use disorders, such as craving and patterns of compulsive use. This resemblance may reflect the involvement of the same neural systems, including those implicated in regulatory self-control and reward, in both groups of disorders. However, the relative contributions of shared and distinct factors in the development and perpetuation of eating and substance use disorders remain insufficiently understood."

Holly_Roman_Empire

I just wish the English language had a word for addiction with milder connotations.

As in: I won't rob a bank for this cookie, but I'll buy it instead of saving a dollar toward next year's vacation.

And: I wouldn't risk my life for this ice cream, but I know eating too much of it may eventually cause me health problems.

Or: If this 1000 calorie cheeseburger and 800 calorie large fries were illegal, I wouldn't risk jail sitting here eating it right now, but I am risking busting out of my favorite jeans.

Yes. This.

Yeah this, and while saying the word "addiction" in normal conversation wouldn't be given a second thought on the street, here on MFP where addictions are real, people really should think about what they say before saying it.

I wouldn't think twice about telling someone that I am addicted to my TV show, but I would never say I'm addicted to drinking my wine while watching it. Context is everything.

lemurcat12

I just wish the English language had a word for addiction with milder connotations.

As in: I won't rob a bank for this cookie, but I'll buy it instead of saving a dollar toward next year's vacation.

And: I wouldn't risk my life for this ice cream, but I know eating too much of it may eventually cause me health problems.

Or: If this 1000 calorie cheeseburger and 800 calorie large fries were illegal, I wouldn't risk jail sitting here eating it right now, but I am risking busting out of my favorite jeans.

First, I don't really have a position on food and addiction. I get confused by how people use the term addiction and don't think there is any agreed upon way here, which often leads to miscommunication.

But here aren't you just making the point that people often put short term gratification over long term goals? That seems to me something that humans in general struggle with in all kinds of contexts, and not about addiction at all.

WendyTerry420

I just robbed a bank to pay for my food habit.

Proof!

WendyTerry420

I just wish the English language had a word for addiction with milder connotations.

As in: I won't rob a bank for this cookie, but I'll buy it instead of saving a dollar toward next year's vacation.

And: I wouldn't risk my life for this ice cream, but I know eating too much of it may eventually cause me health problems.

Or: If this 1000 calorie cheeseburger and 800 calorie large fries were illegal, I wouldn't risk jail sitting here eating it right now, but I am risking busting out of my favorite jeans.

\

Three come to my mind: compulsion, obsession, gluttony. I can try to think of more if you'd like. :flowerforyou:

Eoghann

Sounds about right. In most cases what people are calling addiction is a momentary lapse in will power brought on by all sorts of things (tiredness, stress, emotional exhaustion). Its understandable and normal, but it's not actually addiction.

If you're addicted to food (and some people may be) you need to seek psychological assistance because you have a mental, not chemical, issue to work through.

I mean, I could easily sit and eat chocolate all day. I'd be happy to in fact. But I am perfectly capable of not doing it. So I might jokingly call myself a chocolate addict, but I'm not actually addicted.

CallMeCupcakeDammit

Tagging for later.

msf74

Very good article.

Thanks for posting it.

maillemaker

Great article. Re-affirms what I have thought for years.

Research neurologist Nicole Avena, of Columbia University’s New York Obesity Research Center, said these food cues are all around us in our modern environment in the form of highly palatable foods rich in sugars and fats that taste good. It’s “hedonic eating” versus eating to gain calories to survive. “People eat because they want to eat, not because they have to eat.

That's me in a nutshell.

And not only that, but I will eat something / some amount because I want the pleasure of the food even though I know it's bad for me and I shouldn't eat it.

JulieMSass

Does anyone know of a good book on this topic?

I've recently committed to losing some weight, but am finding it very difficult to stop thinking about food CONSTANTLY! Even after finishing a meal -- and I know I'm not hungry -- I am thinking about when I can have my next snack/meal. I'm not starving myself (by any stretch of the imagination), so I know I'm not depriving my body. I try distracting myself, but that rarely works. I don't know if this is "food addiction" per se, but it's troublesome and I'm not sure what to do about it. Any others out there struggling with this? Any suggestions? Thanks!

CallMeCupcakeDammit

Great article. Re-affirms what I have thought for years.

Research neurologist Nicole Avena, of Columbia University’s New York Obesity Research Center, said these food cues are all around us in our modern environment in the form of highly palatable foods rich in sugars and fats that taste good. It’s “hedonic eating” versus eating to gain calories to survive. “People eat because they want to eat, not because they have to eat.

That's me in a nutshell.

And not only that, but I will eat something / some amount because I want the pleasure of the food even though I know I'm over my calories and I shouldn't eat it.

FIFY. No food is "bad for you", it's just not always ideal from a nutritional standpoint. Unless you eat puffer fish, which I think is poisonous if you eat the wrong part. Maybe that's a myth. I think I saw it on the Simpson's. Too tired to google.

Edited for brain fart.

Lonestar5775

I just wish the English language had a word for addiction with milder connotations.

As in: I won't rob a bank for this cookie, but I'll buy it instead of saving a dollar toward next year's vacation.

And: I wouldn't risk my life for this ice cream, but I know eating too much of it may eventually cause me health problems.

Or: If this 1000 calorie cheeseburger and 800 calorie large fries were illegal, I wouldn't risk jail sitting here eating it right now, but I am risking busting out of my favorite jeans.

Obession maybe?

Confuzzled4ever

Does anyone know of a good book on this topic?

I've recently committed to losing some weight, but am finding it very difficult to stop thinking about food CONSTANTLY! Even after finishing a meal -- and I know I'm not hungry -- I am thinking about when I can have my next snack/meal. I'm not starving myself (by any stretch of the imagination), so I know I'm not depriving my body. I try distracting myself, but that rarely works. I don't know if this is "food addiction" per se, but it's troublesome and I'm not sure what to do about it. Any others out there struggling with this? Any suggestions? Thanks!

I think about food constantly too. Since it's essential to life, i don't think it's abnormal. I decided to use that and make it work for me. I looked up recipes and tried new foods and combined things to make new things. I made it fun. It hasn't' changed what i think about, but it changed the context I think about it in. So now when I think oh chicken is so yummy, I automatically start thinking about what recipe I want to make for dinner, or if I want to experiment. If I find myself obsessing about cake, I will start looking for something that i can make that will qwell that obsession and still fit into my diet.

Also.. if you space smaller snacks out closer together it might help with the "omg I can't eat until when??" thoughts? If that is the issue.

sloth3toes

Does anyone know of a good book on this topic?

I've recently committed to losing some weight, but am finding it very difficult to stop thinking about food CONSTANTLY! Even after finishing a meal -- and I know I'm not hungry -- I am thinking about when I can have my next snack/meal. I'm not starving myself (by any stretch of the imagination), so I know I'm not depriving my body. I try distracting myself, but that rarely works. I don't know if this is "food addiction" per se, but it's troublesome and I'm not sure what to do about it. Any others out there struggling with this? Any suggestions? Thanks!

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/eating-disorders/binge-eating-disorder/features/compulsive-overeating-and-how-to-stop-it

I read this book. I'd stop short of saying it's a 'good book on this topic,' because I didn't feel any of the author's 'solutions' were that viable. The 'Cinnabon' chapter was rather entertaining. Your mileage may vary.

Compulsive Overeating and How to Stop It

David Kessler, MD