So suggests a front page CNN.com story:
Chances of this being true? If it is, what would it mean for the junk food and obesity debates?
David Kessler talks about that experiment, and dozens of others, in his book The End of Overeating. Here is a brief article about him. The book is very interesting and in the end it is hard not to feel angered by the attitude of the food industry. They are willfully engaged in producing products that are designed to encourage an addictive response.
It seems the semantics of “addiction” and related words has been broadened so much as to to make them almost useless at the scientific level. Onelook’s definitions include: "▸ noun: an abnormally strong craving
▸ noun: being abnormally tolerant to and dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming "
Perhaps such broad definitions are helpful. I don’t know. I am just skeptical of the usefulness of having a single word for “an abnormally strong craving” except to get grant money, perhaps.
There is no way that people get chemcial dependencies to fatty foods. People may develop a strong taste preference for them, but criticizing that is just saying that foods shouldn’t taste good.
Anyone who says that fatty foods affects the brain the same way cocaine does has never done any cocaine. Unless they mean it affects it in the same way, but to a far lesser extent. Of course, the article says “much the same way”… whatever that means.
You need food to survive, and bacon et al. are food.
Heroin and blow are not.
What’s so complicated ? Is labeling those comfort foods as “addictive” a way to excuse the weakness of people (me included, oh so damn too much) towards them ?
That’s not exactly true. Fat itself isn’t going to do anything like that, but the taste experience of fat (and all other foods) is mediated by neurotransmitters and hormones, which theoretically can resemble the effect of addictive drugs. I would imagine that this state actually happens in some people, who could quite correctly be called “fat addicts.”
ETA: Responding to begbert2.
People who create the “fatty” foods are people looking to induce people to buy their product. You can’t blame the people making the food because that lays the responsibility at their feet.
Where is the personal responsibility of the obese? There is no bogey man to blame for being fat, suck it up and do something about it (if you wish to, that is)
Now, I would buy that more and more people have addictive tendencies (maybe due to the fact that most of them can afford it)
Ask a woman about chocolate (who is actively trying to lose weight)…
It’s true.
Palatable foods evokes dopamine release throughout the mesolimbic pathway. Nicotine, caffeine, heroin, and cocaine cause dopamine release as well (albeit through distinct but converging mechanisms). Go on, look it up. Eating feels good. I think, for some people, eating fatty or carbohydrate-rich foods may act as a mood-altering drug.
Okay, but is dopamine addictive?
Call me crazy, but I think there’s a useful distinction to be drawn between things that “feel good” while you’re doing them, and things which feel bad when you stop doing them. The latter, I call addictive. The former, I call the reason for living. Sure immoderate indulgence can have negative consequences, but there’s a difference between that and heroin.
Precisely.
I think that eating palatable foods allows people to overcome their demons (depression, family problems, etc). By constantly eating they feel good when they stop, they’re forced to deal with the harshness of their internal/external environment. I don’t think trying to tell obese people who diet and exercise ad nauseum is helpful because they’re eating habits isn’t just genetic but likely have significant stress and psychological components. The best way to help obese people to hand them amphetamines if their young or weekly injections with leptin if they are older. In the early part of the century, amphetamines were prescribed as an appetite suppressant. Now they’re solely used to treat ADD/ADHD. It’s a shame because amphatamines really worked as appetite suppressants. Instead, doctors prescribe drugs like orlistat that doesn’t reduce food intake but just cause mild lipid-soluble vitamin deficiencies :smack:. It’d be nice to see a nurse, MD, DO ring in on this thread.
- Honesty
I dunno, I haven’t gained any weight since I started getting 70-80% of my daily calories from fat, mostly saturated. But what I eat doesn’t have much affect on my weight. I don’t have much of a taste for sugar anymore though, I prefer fatty, savory things more the longer I have been eating this way.
Um, yes. That’s the whole point of comparing it to cocaine, or any other upper, as the reason they are addictive is that they increase dopamine levels. There’s really not a dopinergic drug that isn’t addictive.
And apparently none of y’all were made to try a sugar fast back in sixth grade “Drug free” classes. You better bet you’ll experience a form of withdrawal. I don’t see why fat would be different.
Maybe more precisely, dopamine is part of the addiction mechanism. As I understand it, dopamine encourages the person to repeat the behavior that caused the release of the dopamine. It isn’t the same as the substance (another one of those -ine substances but I forget the name of it) that causes you to feel good in and of itself, but that substance can also be produced by certain types of food. When both of these substances are produced by the same action, i.e. by eating a particular food, it’s darned near irresistable.
To answer the OP’s second question, my whole attitude to this (as a former fat person still struggling with eating issues) is that knowledge is power. I had that reaction very strongly when reading Kessler’s book. The last third, where he discusses what to do about the problem, was pretty lame, but the first two thirds where he goes into this whole “hyperpalatable” food issue, is very powerful for the knowledge it imparts.
I don’t think it ever hurts to have more knowledge. And I don’t think this is about avoiding personal responsibility (and I don’t hold food companies responsible the way that Kessler seems to), or about making excuses. I am always responsible for what goes in my mouth, at least as much as any junkie is for whatever substance he is abusing. But understanding what is going on in my body certainly helps me to take steps to counteract it. Not every person with eating problems is going to feel the same way I do, but that doesn’t make the information wrong or bad.
Roddy