or

@RalfLott thanks for the link. I can relate to the speakers introductory remarks about getting discouraged when talking about eating healthy. Today I have been teaching my English language students about healthy eating and today they literally walked out of the room. I am finding it hard to get anyone interested even though they are so sick with diabetes and lack of exercise. I was trying to teach about packaged food versus real food. Oh well

Yes, I agree about repetition. After all, this is something that the fast food and sugary advertisers have known for a long time - repeating their message works! I find that I need to hear the same message about healthy eating many times for it to really sink in. I'm not stupid but repetition just seems to be necessary.

I haven't been able to watch the video yet, but I've started supplementing amino acids per a couple protocols, kind of making my own up, and I had a BFO about it yesterday - when you eat sugar you get that serotonin et al rush. When you take aminos, you fill up those receptors. So if you're full up. there's little rush to get, and therefore little cravings that follow.

I've said in another thread, with my insulin resistance and binge eating issues, one craving could lead to one bite which could lead to entire packets for things gone in practically in instant! Since going low carb, most of those cravings diminished, but after a period of time, usually 7-14 days, I would kind of "hit a wall" with the cravings, spiraling out, and feeling the feel-good only-food-that-will-satisfy compulsion that I couldn't outrun.

Since adding in the aminos and such, my sleep has improved, I'm doing better managing stress (trying to move having had an impossible time finding a place - and now having finally found a place - not having the money to actually move!!! - among other things), the cravings are diminished (instead of having a nearly insatiable thought to eat sweets with/after every meal, I've now had maybe 2 compulsive eating episodes in about a month, versus 4-10, and the volume has been realistic compared to a normal person, etc. If it is a placebo effect, I'm thrilled.).

Mentally, I was getting back to a good place already, so these are like the backup support system. These are the three articles that really flipped a switch for me. And honestly, without them, the compulsion for sweets was still there, likely tied to the insulin resistance and such, and these people who could just quit sweeteners, well, they seemed like willpower aliens from another universe to me, the concept was just so foreign. I'm still not making the progress I'd like overall, but I'm having to adjust a lot of things right now in support of overall health, and that comes first for me - knowing weight lost can't help but follow once the other soldiers are marching in rank and file!

carbsyndrome.com/is-your-brain-two-quarts-low/

foodrenegade.com/how-beat-sugar-cravings-glutamine/

https://afpafitness.com/research-articles/alcoholism-need-vitamins-become-well-2

And really, this makes so much sense that addiction tendencies and all that seem to stem from deficiencies, poor receptors, and all that sort of thing... I look forward to seeing if my deficiency is treated in time and able to change things up...

What I find fascinating is that in the MFP main forums this has been discussed many times, and the general consensus from non-low-carbers (the CICO, IIFYM, etc. crowd) is that it DOESN'T exist. Even in threads less than a year old.

I find that kind of belief a little like the pre-socratic philosophers and general population believing the earth was flat. Despite evidence to the contrary, and experts explaining WHY it's a real addiction ... they just refuse to believe.

Since 2013 the DSM-V changes have acknowledged 'food addiction' of one type or another. They included 'binge eating disorder' (which didn't previously have a reference), as well as other non-specified eating disorders as well as new behavioural addictions - ie: Gambling.

While not every expert agrees with all the inclusions in the DSM-V, people should respect that it was developed over years with considerable discussion AND a CONSENSUS of EXPERTS. I still agree that neither 'food addiction' nor (more-specifically) 'carbohydrate addiction' should be classified as a "Substance Use Disorder", as I believe them to be better-classified as a "Behavioural Disorder" (according to all current and past diagnostic criteria), but I also believe for many individuals the addictions can certainly qualify as abuse as well.

Let's be honest ... We now acknowledge gambling addiction as a behavioural addiction in the DSM-V, and nobody disputes that it happens to real people and destroys lives. For those addicts, gambling stimulates reward/pleasure receptors in the brain without any substance/physiological component. What we know-as and think-of as carbohydrate addiction does the same thing, but WITH an added physiological/substance component. For nearly 10 years now multiple studies and reviews have confirmed this (there were many previous to this also, but it's become a much more prevalent topic of debate and study recently, so I only included some studies from the past decade):

2007: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
2009: http://jn.nutrition.org/content/139/3/620.full
2009; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19500625
2009: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19223127
2010: http://journals.lww.com/co-clinicalnutrition/Abstract/2010/07000/Neurobiology_of_food_addiction.3.aspx
2010: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3124340/
2011: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyt.2011.00061/full
2012: http://link.springer.com/protocol/10.1007/978-1-61779-458-2_23
2012: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eat.20957/full
2013: http://journals.lww.com/co-clinicalnutrition/Abstract/2013/07000/Sugar_addiction___pushing_the_drug_sugar_analogy.11.aspx
2014: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763414002140
2014: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyt.2014.00038/full
2014: http://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/6/9/3653/htm
2015: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11920-015-0563-3
2016: http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/65/7/1797

That's just a few. Sure, there is some dissenting opinion - mainly in those who still contend that after 2 decades of research there's still not enough evidence. This seems similar to the "no evidence that nicotine is addictive" mantra of 70's, imho.

The above studies and review touch on the subject of the pleasure/reward stimulation... but in addition carbohydrate addicts almost universally experience symptoms of withdrawal (cravings) - which, while maybe not as physiologically severe as that of something like heroin - those cravings are still incredibly difficult to overcome for a very large population.

With all this in mind, the only people I can see denying carbohydrate addiction are those either funded by the food industry (whose lobby does NOT want 'food addiction' or 'carbohydrate addiction' acknowledged, and will happily pay research scientists boatloads of money to write opinions and reviews counter to the idea), or those that - for whatever reason - choose believe them.