Food Addiction

Here's an article that I found somewhere online, having to do with the physical and emotional/mental dynamics of simple carbohydrate ingestion leading to binges:

Brain Chemistry
Combinations of foods in the blood trigger effects very similar to alcohol.
By Robert Lefever, MD, BChir, and Marie Shafe, EdD

All of us like to “look right” and “feel right”. We may not have a clear image of what is right, but we may be very clear that we do not like the way we look or the way we feel at the present time. Yet, when we change we may not be as satisfied as we thought we would be with the end result. We may find that our newfound satisfaction does not last very long because we find it extraordinarily difficult to maintain our new behavior and self-image. We feel ashamed of ourselves for being so “weak-willed” and the whole desperate search for perfect control begins all over again. The intensity of this process varies enormously from one person to another. Some people are more or less content with themselves the way they are and do not feel any great need for change. Most people would like to change a bit – be slimmer, more fit or more attractive – and there are times when they make a determined effort in these directions. But there are some people whose lives become dominated by these quests to be slimmer, more fit, attractive or not to eat so much. We refer to these people as having “eating disorders”, although that really describes the end result rather than the cause, which is a “feeling disorder”. The true nature of these eating/feeling disorders is that we crave something “out there” to change the feeling “in here”. Out there may be a substance such as sugar, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, amphetamines, tranquilizers or a compulsive process such as bingeing or starving, spending, risk-taking, exercising or even another person. Anything or anybody may help alter moods and feeling. But some things “work” particularly well. These particular substances, processes or relationships are used to excess to an increasingly destructive degree until they are addictive.

Addictive Disease.
There is a lot of confusion and fear surrounding the word addiction. Examining this substance or process as an addictive disease takes away the sense of shame and allows us to look at addictive craving or addictive behavior with the same concern and understanding that we should bring to any other clinical condition. However, this does not take away the responsibility for behavior and recovery. There is increasing evidence that compulsive behavior runs in families or may be genetic. Anorexia nervosa, for example, is seven times more common in some families than in the general population. Addiction disease, for many, seems increasingly likely to be part of “the way we are”. People who suffer from addictive disease often find that is has several outlets. Closing one outlet – for example, to stop drinking alcohol – may open another outlet – such as nicotine.

Food as a Drug.
People often imagine that food addictions are particularly difficult because food cannot be given up in the way that someone suffering from alcoholism can give up alcohol. In fact, the “drugs” of eating disorders are sugar, white flour, and other refined carbohydrates. The sheer quantities of sugars and refined carbohydrates consumed today by the average individual in the developed world is vast compared to what our bodies were designed to cope with or ingest. There is evidence that major “modern” diseases including heart disease, cancer, kidney failure, pancreatic disease and gallbladder disease are linked to high consumption of sugar and refined carbohydrates.

Sugar and refined carbohydrates may be simply foods to most people, just as alcohol is simply a drink. For people with or predisposed to addictive disease, however, these are drugs. They have a significant mood-altering effect through their direct action on the “mood centers” of the brain in addition to the calories and other nutritional elements they provide. Once the mood centers are stimulated in any way by the first use of an addictive substance or process, the addictive cravings will set in and the full addictive process sets off. For the eating disordered individual, there are two major concerns relative to the food substance: 1). The disorder of neurotransmitter in the brain center stimulated by the agents of sugar and white flour, and 2) fat grams which are more pound-inducing than sugar. A close look reveals that refined carbohydrates and white flour are 20 percent as potent as refined sugar in their mood-altering properties.

Feeling Disorders.
Earlier, we mentioned that eating disorders are really “feeling disorders” because of the desire to “mood-alter” from such feelings as depression, shame, control and fear of abandonment and rejection. Sugar and white flour stimulate an increase in the transmission of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine. As the synapses become flooded with these neurotransmitters, a feeling of euphoria results and craving is stimulated. As these three neurochemicals increase in supply at the synapses, there is a decrease in the needed neurotransmitter to fill receptors as receptors continue to be produced.

We now find a brain transmitter deficiency. The sugar and white flour have blocked the recycling of neurotransmitter dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. The net effect of continued, long-term use is to increase the level of “breakdown products”. These products break down dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine and decrease the supply of needed neurotransmitters. In other words, they scramble the production, release and recycle process in the hypothalamus. Since the hypothalamus is the center for emotional and ingestive behavior, one’s mood and craving become like an out of control “roller coaster”. One actually becomes intoxicated by the sugar, white flour and other refined carbohydrates as they act as alcohol in the blood system and hypothalamus.

When insufficient amounts of neurotransmitter are produced and released and receptor sites are left unfilled, the result becomes feelings of craving, distress and depression. This process is similar to that presented for chemical dependency by researchers, Blum, Trachtenberg, and Kozlowski. They indicate this condition may result from a genetic irregularity, or effects of stress, drug abuse or food deprivation. We believe it also results from the intake of sugar and white flour. The state of euphoria resulting from a surge of serotonin or dopamine is often followed by hyperexcitability and feelings of shame, abandonment and worthlessness. Neurotransmitter deficits are restored by the removal of sugar, white flour and other refined carbohydrate from the diet.

Addictive properties.
The addictive properties of sugar and white flour continue to be ignored just as the relation between high blood pressure, heart disease, circulatory disease, kidney failure, cancer and other diseases and what we eat and how much are ignored. There is a correlation between the death rates compiled by the National Center of Health Statistics and the trend in sugar and fat-laden foods recorded by the Department of Agriculture. We find that it takes an increasing frequency and amount of sugar, white flour and other refined carbohydrates to induce the desired high or euphoric state. The food addict develops a high tolerance for volume until a crash occurs due to health difficulties and the increased imbalance of neurotransmitter and receptors in the brain center.

Giving up sugar and white flour and replacing them with whole grain/whole wheat and the natural sugar in fruit is easier said than done. There are many forms of sugar. Manufacturers hide sugar in processed and fast foods. They know that adding sugar gets consumers hooked on sugar-additive foods.

There is also a distinct withdrawal when one stops eating sugar and white flour. This is true because systems must detox from these addictive substances. These symptoms include: dizziness, headaches, extreme irritability, insomnia, restlessness, mental disorientation, forgetting and a growing inner emptiness or depression that led to the addiction in the first place. These symptoms gradually taper off after about 10 days. The food addict may experience occasional cravings later on when we are under emotional distresses of one kind or another, but the withdrawal symptoms are gone for good.

Withdrawal.
Special caution is necessary during the withdrawal period as the urge to self-medicate with sugar, white flour and other refined carbohydrates will heighten. Depression or anxiety motivates one toward food for comfort or reward – to feel better. Sugar increases the amount of brain chemical serotonin for a quick high or fix. Milk, fresh vegetables and whole grains increase the supply of serotonin as well but at a much slower, natural rate. You may ask, “Is alcohol a refined carbohydrate?”. Yes, it is the ultimate refined carbohydrate. It is unsafe for sufferers from eating disorders to drink alcohol. Even if they never had problems with alcohol, they increase the risk of blocking or interfering with neurotransmitter balance and restimulating the eating disorder. Correspondingly, sufferers from alcoholism are well advised to give up sugar and white flour because they will act to restimulate an imbalance of the neurotransmitter.

In 1971, Roger Williams of Loma Linda University conducted an experiment where a diet high in sugar and white flour produced a marked preference for alcohol. Williams concluded that alcoholism is, to a large extent, a metabolic disorder exacerbated by sugar and white flour.

A common fear is that food addicts will have to give up all things they enjoy. These justifications and rationalizations are a major mental characteristic of addictive disease. They want to fantasize about substances, processes or relationships that put the joy and meaning into their lives. One unexpected pleasure is beginning to enjoy food and mealtimes for perhaps the first time. Gone are the cravings, the dining table strategy of how little or how much to stake away, and the shame. They can experience the actual taste of food, enjoy conversation and move toward serenity.

Recovery is an everyday process. It means first giving up sugar and white flour, then attending 12-step meetings regularly and working a program of recovery.

The Diet Myth.
It is evident that diets do not work. If they did, they would not produce a multi-billion dollar industry each year. If they did, we would not see the proliferation of the “New Miracle Diets” or “New Seven Day Wonder Diets”. Diets and diet pills do not work because they only offer ways to temporarily suppress the appetite. This can be done just as well by consuming lemon juice and water. The only thing that will really address the issue here is the focus upon the restoration of the deficit or imbalance of the neurotransmitter-receptor process.

The real issue is that recovery from eating disorders is a process of acknowledging the intoxicating effects of sugar, white flour and other refined carbohydrates along with the spiritual process. The spiritual process is working on the development of the human spirit, allowing for the rekindling of hope, love, trust, self-appreciation and all the other intangible dimensions that make life so worthwhile. These are the very things that addictive disease suppresses. The distortions of body image (thinking that one looks dramatically different from what in reality one does look like) are a major feature of eating disorders. This provides further evidence that the disease and its recovery must have an essential spiritual component.

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This is a lot for even me to take in. I am definitely in the withdrawal phase right now. I actually fantasize about bread right now. I come from a long line of highly addictive personalities. Food is definitely my addiction - I do turn to it for so much. This explains a lot for me - gives me so much to think about.