Former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner David Kessler has reportedly written a book, titled The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, that criticizes the food industry for contributing to a culture of “conditioned hypereating,” a phenomenon allegedly comparable to drug addiction that encourages millions of people to eat high-fat, high-sugar foods even when not hungry. The book cites neurological research suggesting that foods high in fat and sugar can trigger dopamine pathways in the brain, which then becomes conditioned to associate specific aromas, tastes and places with positive experiences and to thus promote overeating. According to Kessler, people prone to hypereating must learn to resist temptations in an environment rife with inexpensive high-fat, high-calorie foods. He also apparently hopes more restaurants will rein in portion sizes and reveal calories on menus. “The food industry has figured out what works. They know what drives people to…
Tag Archives addiction
Relying on the DSM-IV criteria for substance dependence and other substance use disorders, researchers have hypothesized that the over-consumption of refined foods can be described as an addiction that “could account for the global epidemic of obesity and other metabolic disorders.” J.R. Ifland, et al., “Refined Food Addiction: A Classic Substance Use Disorder,” Medical Hypotheses (2009). They match the statements obtained from obese people involved in a clinical observation study with substance dependence criteria such as progressive use over time, withdrawal symptoms, use more than intended, and tried to cut back, and show how “reports from self-identified food addicts seem to comprise behaviors that conform to the DSM-IV criteria. The pathology of behavior and the elements of loss control and distress that are prevalent in other addictions also appear in this qualitative data.” While calling for further empirical research, the article also cites animal research and obesity literature as additional…
According to the president for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a nonprofit vegan group founded in 1985, recent, unpublicized studies have suggested that “cheese, chocolate, sugar, and meat all spark the release of opiate-like substances that trigger the brain’s pleasure center and seduce us into eating them again and again.” Neal Bernard also discusses research showing (i) “participants moving to a vegetarian diet have a harder time giving up cheese than almost any other food”; (ii) “the principal protein in cheese, casein, breaks apart during digestion to produce abundant amounts of morphine-like compounds called casomorphins”; and (iii) naxolone, an opiate blocker used to treat morphine and heroin overdoses, reduces the desire for chocolate, sugar, cheese, and meat suggesting that their attraction does indeed come from druglike effects caused within the brain.” Bernard asserts that “just as Big Tobacco intentionally manipulated the addictive qualities of its products, Big Food…
