In an attempt to get a handle on what’s causing America’s burgeoning obesity problem, a group of obesity, nutrition, and addiction experts held a conference to discuss whether some people can actually get addicted to food, reported journalist Nanci Hellmich of USA Today.
The two-day conference took place in New Haven, Connecticut, and was sponsored by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. One of the meeting’s co-chairs, Mark Gold, M.D., chief of addiction medicine at the University of Florida’s McKnight Brain Institute, says that brain imaging research in people, as well as studies done on animals, support the concept that food can be addictive, according to Hellmich’s article.
What’s more, Dr. Gold says, some foods may hook people more than others.
"It may be that doughnuts with high fat and high sugar cause more brain reward than soup," he said.
I’m sure that it comes as no surprise to many readers of this SUGAR SHOCK! Blog and Connie, this blog’s creator, that people can become dependent on sugar. In fact, Connie delves into a fascinating discussion of this subject in Chapter 9 of her book SUGAR SHOCK!
For instance, Connie cites studies done on rats at Princeton and Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, showing that the poor rodents became slavishly hooked on the sweet stuff. She also quotes Nora Volkow, M.D., director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who spoke at the Rudd Center’s food addiction conference.
Connie cites some sutdies by Dr. Volkow, including one in The Lancet, which showed obese people have fewer dopamine receptors in their brains than people of normal weight. Dopamine is a chemical responsible for the brain’s ability to feel pleasure, and people whose dopamine response is deficient may feel compelled to overindulge in sugar and fat to compensate, Dr. Volkow believes.
Given how serious the obesity problem is, I think it’s great that doctors and researchers are exploring every possible avenue for understanding what causes it. Thanks to the blog Rudd Sound Bites for the heads-up about this important conference.
From Jennifer Moore for the SUGAR SHOCK! Blog