Tue, Dec-18-01, 12:52
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Senior Member
Posts: 2,193
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Plan: mostly paleo
Stats: //
BF:also don't care
Progress: 100%
Location: West Coast, USA
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Lessara, carbs DO work in a medicinal way. It's likely some of us have a shortage of either serotonin or serotonin receptors, and maybe a shortage of beta-endorphins, as well. Any carb will temporarily help that condition, which is exactly why we turn to sweets and snacks when we feel sad or stressed. (If you turn to food when you're happy and excited, the serotonin problem is probably not yours!) The problem is, after the "help" of carbs, there is short-term (the "crash") and long-term costs, as well. There's some evidence, for instance, that long-term sugar abusers have great wastelands of non-functioning serotonin receptors, just as cocaine addicts do. After one or two years of LCing, will the brain repair itself? They don't know, and as far as I'm aware, there is no research going on for sugar/carb addicts, but for cocaine addicts it appears that no, the brain does not repair itself. Thus the probability of recidivism into addiction is very high.
Maybe PnP will help people, but what I fear is that it's the addiction calling to us: "oh a plan where I can eat lots of carbs--great!" For me, and I suspect for many of us, trying to abstain from sugar and processed grains forever is the better way to treat the mood part of carb addiction. At least our brains and our habits have a chance to find other paths to happiness, ideally natural ones that carry less risk to our health.
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