Well, the discussion about whether everybody is an addict who is fat, drags the attention from the question whether it is the case in general.

I would say the generation-wide on and off-dieting is showing the magnitude of the problem. What I personnally experienced is that fat people are in general in denial about (the cause of) being overweight, that's what triggered the resemblance with people drinking to much. Trying to convince other (fat) people to not take it not so serious, that their husbands don't mind, that it's not that a big problem etc. etc.

Now is being in denial not a thing that points to addiction persé, but in combination with a thing you enter above normal proportions in your body, it looks so to me.

That's your opinion; mine is different; who knows which of us is right but it's an interesting question. In reference to the above, I don't think it confirms addiction; instead it confirms that we're eating the wrong *kinds* of foods. It doesn't make sense that people in other generations would not have been "addicted" to foods, while we are. Rather, people in other generations did not have processed products from which to choose on shelves.

If it were a simple matter of addiction to foods, then the 20th century would not have been the first century that showed incredible rates of obesity. And yes, prior generations did have white sugar (but more often coarse sugar) and they did have white flour (but again, not as easily accessible and certainly not as easy to make as coarse brown flours). However, they didn't have them as easily, as conveniently and just around the corner at the store. "Refined" items were harder to get and much more expensive by comparison. If anything, it's industry that caused our "addiction"--not our "demand" for sugarey foods. Demand would cause prices to go up--not down. (Supply/demand.) Instead, we are able now to mass-produce these items more cheaply than their unrefined counterparts.

The way it happened was that manufacturers made refined foods cheaper and easier to get *first*. *Then* we had the obesity problem. True addictions don't evolve that way. You don't see the price of cocaine plummeting because people demand more of it. You sure as heck don't see the price of cigarettes plummeting. In a true addiction, you'll walk two miles to the store if your car has broken down and you are out of cigarettes. You'll sell all your personal belongings in order to get your heroin. With sugar so-called "addiction", this has not been the pattern. It was the opposite. Sugar was around for quite some time before it became so cheap but you didn't hear about Jesse James holding up a train in order to get at the sugar.

Addictions, when they're real, don't wait for humans to make them easily available. How easily available is crack? Is it at the grocery store? No, it's bought in secret with furtive glances and it's bought instead of feeding the children. If processed foods were an addiction, you would have heard of sugar "deals", but you don't. You would have read about families gorging on sugar until it was gone, then doing whatever they could to go into the nearest town and get more.

When tobacco was introduced to Europe in the 17th century, it was IMMEDIATELY apparent how incredibly addictive it was. People didn't have it once in a blue moon while it was available and then forget about it the rest of the time. However, with refined sugar, people DID eat it when it was available, then forget about it the rest of the time.

Addictions don't work in reverse. They don't wait until availability to take hold of the human physiology and psyche.

As to the study on the rats above, are those symptoms of withdrawal, or are they symptoms of insulin flooding followed by a downward plummet? Isn't that physical? Isn't that what causes overweight...our bodies needing to be rebalanced after insulin has been rocketed up and then down? Feeling our levels go down again, we rush for more food, and instinct tells us to make that the most easily processed food available. It's an imbalance--a very very real one--but I'm not sure it's an addiction.

Now, when you stop sugar, you do crave. OH BOY do you crave. But is that due to addiction? Just because the symptoms are like withdrawal, doesn't mean it actually is withdrawal. It's my belief that the symptoms come because we suddenly don't have the source of fuel our bodies are used to getting, and the body takes a few days to accept this fact and switch over to burning fat instead of glucose. In the few days before this happens, we're shaky, irritable and headache-ey...which makes sense since we're not burning glucose but we're not burning fat yet either; we're in effect "starving" for those few days. And what do we crave? What ANY body would crave during times of starvation--the food that will go IMMEDIATELY to our bloodstream. That only makes sense. I don't think that's psychological at all. It's very real, very physical and the very normal response of a healthy body looking to save itself.

Anyone doing low carbs would crave the carbs at first. That's your body asking you to give it what is easily accessible, not because you are addicted. It knows how easily a piece of bread would go down and it could be assimilated. Whereas a piece of meat will take a longer time; or even an apple.

I don't care how fat/thin a person was or how controlled their eating was/wasn't. If you take away all but 20 grams of carbs very suddenly, they are going to have a reaction. It is physiological. For anyone to sit here and say that this means you are an addict is way beyond ludicrous; it's ignorant and unknowing about the human body.

Glendora: I'm sorry to hear of your past pain and I hope your DH will stop being a present pain. I say "kick him..." Maybe if you did that every time he analyzed you; he'd stop.

Thanks, QuietOne. I actually had a few talks with him during the height of his "it's because of the abuse" craze. He has since pretty much stopped doing it...just short of my kicking him. Maybe he knew the kicking was coming and that's why he stopped!

Your post (about lowering carbs suddenly) made a lot of sense & put things in perspective, thanks for that.

I’ve read this at least 5 times and it still makes no sense to me.



I wasn’t talking about insulin, I was talking about dopamine.

”Activation of the brain’s dopamine motivation circuits is distinct from the role the brain chemical plays when people actually eat, and may be similar to what addicts experience when craving drugs. Scientists have done extensive research showing that addictive drugs increase the levels of dopamine in the brain, and that addicts have fewer dopamine receptors than non-addicts. Last year, in an effort to understand the relationship of the dopamine system to obesity, they found that obese individuals also had fewer dopamine receptors than normal control subjects.”

http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/2002/bnlpr052002.htm




“Obese people have fewer receptors for dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps produce feelings of satisfaction and pleasure. Scientists have done extensive research showing that dopamine plays an important role in drug addiction. Among other things, they¹ve found that addictive drugs increase the level of dopamine in the brain, and that addicts have fewer dopamine receptors than normal subjects.”

http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/2001/bnlpr020101.htm

“One of the neurotransmitters playing a major role in addiction is dopamine. Many of the concepts that apply to dopamine apply to other neurotransmitters as well. As a chemical messenger, dopamine is similar to adrenaline. Dopamine affects brain processes that control movement, emotional response, and ability to experience pleasure and pain. “

http://www.utexas.edu/research/asrec/dopamine.html

”Sugar addiction is more than a trite expression people use to describe their sweet tooth. A pattern of fasting and overloading on sugary foods may foster dependence, according to a study published in Obesity Research.”

http://cms.psychologytoday.com/arti...124-000002.html

So yes, it’s real withdrawal, not just your body switching fuels. Sugar is an addictive substance, that’s a scientific fact. If you want to make it up as you go along, ignore scientific research, and the way the human brain functions, more power to you. I choose to base what I believe in on substantiated evidence, not opinionated malarkey. And in case you didn't know this, physical and emotional responses both come from neurotransmitters in the brain. You can't separate the two unless you’re talking about decisions based on emotion or reason, in which case, reason would be the healthy psychological choice. There are just some things that aren’t up for debate, like the fact that we have neurotransmitters and receptors that fire whether we choose to acknowledge this reality or not.

Okay, it doesn't read well. I thought that as I was typing it but was in too much of a hurry to get out the door to re-write it.

What I was saying was:

An addiction is an addiction. An addiction isn't going to wait an entire generation, or two or three or dozens, to "suddenly" begin affecting people. If it is an addiction now, why wasn't it then? (That's not "ignoring" scientific research, it's just a fact.) What I meant by "addictions don't wait" etc., was a facetious statement something on the order of the following: Addictions don't politely sit in a corner, waiting until they become economically and geographically obtainable before deciding to jump in and seize people both physically and psychologically. So, all your scientific research notwithstanding, it's rather puzzling that this particular "addiction" hung out in the background waiting until the 1930's when white flour and sugar began appearing in mass quantities to rear its ugly head.

All this aside, you're getting incredibly defensive so I'm going to drop this and allow you to live in your own reality, too...you know, the one where everyone's body responds like yours, and anyone who disagrees with your point of view is "in denial".

Tootles...

Sugarjunky: scientific research is sometimes unreliable. Scientists can skew things just as easily as anyone else. That way they continue to get their grant money. Serotonin deficiency is usually why people over eat. Dopamine is the excitement, feel-good, taking care of business neurotransmitter. Serotonin is the calming, neurotransmitter. That is why PMS'ers crave carbs and sugar. Serotonin lacking is what makes people irritable, teary, and have sleep problems. Quite frankly, if eating carbs did make me produce dopamine, I would probably never have gone on a LC diet 'cause I would have been on a constant high.

I think this argument is a fallacy. I have read, researched and been a member of many diet groups. Your point that it is processed food that is the problem is true. It is the availability of processed foods that allowed the addiction to occur. Delivery of a pure product right to the bloodstream. No bothersome whole grains or unrefined product to interfere with that sugar rush and hookup for addiction. Sort of like refined drugs. Some drugs in their natural or unrefined state can be considered food or at least fiber. It takes processing and refining to bring out their addictive qualities.

The fact that sugar is cheap has nothing to do with it. In fact, real sugar is not cheap anymore, that's why producers switched to corn syrup which is cheaper. And their goal is to keep their product cheap. Cheap products keep people buying and buying a lot. Volume of sales is the point in mass production. That's what drives the bottom line. Their prices can't rise too much because there are too many producers with replacement products. That's basic economics. We've seen the disappearance of some good lc products/producers because the volume was not there. Cheap prices keep parents buying the junk as constant "treats". If it were more expensive, parents wouldn't treat as often. Like herion and other illegal drugs, the object is to get people hooked by exposure to the product. The sugar taste needs to develop at a young age. If you keep children away from sugar until age 4-5, they don't develop their taste for sugar. They aren't set up for the addiction unless another chemical changing life event occurs like pregnancy, stress or illness. And then this addiction is also brought about by a class of food, i.e. simple carbs which include sugars and starches. And the delivery system usually includes fats, too.

The fact that drugs are expensive are due to the economics of prohibition, not supply. If drugs were legal, the price would be much cheaper and more readily available. The producer/grower of the drugs/crops make very little. It's distribution that reaps the profit. And don't think that people don't get all the drugs they want. I work for the DEA and the flood of illegal supply is huge and it does keep drugs readily available and cheap. They could be cheaper, given the supply but the dealers refuse to lower the price. They say it wouldn't be worth their while to sell them. So for drugs, you have an artificially high price. You can do that in an illegal market.

OK, back to addiction. Go talk to some 24 hour store clerks or the Krispy Kreme/Dunkin Donuts shops. Hear their stories of people coming in a 11-12 at night to buy dozens of donuts, $20-30 worth of junk. Midnight runs for ice cream, candy, sugary and or fried foods at late night eaterys and supermarkets. A party at that time of night? I don't think so. A party of one maybe. Go to some OA meetings or read cases in diet books. Stories about midnight raids, searching the house for "drugs", looking under couch cushions and eating the findings, hiding stashes, eating alone or in hiding, hiding the evidence of eating, sneaking the trash out, going so far as to putting in in their neighbors trash or in street bins on their way to work. Not signs of addiction? Come on, classic addiction signs. There are people who know the location of every donut shop and fast food joint on their way to/from work or anywhere else they regularly drive too.

The fact that the drugs are cheap and readily available does not negate the fact that people can be and are addicted.

True not everyone is, but that doesn't mean no one is.