Sugar is Addictive

November 20, 2009 ↓ Comments (0)

A research project at Boston University points to sugar as an addictive food, perhaps as bad as drugs or alcohol.

Rats were fed “regular” rat food for seven days and then sugary-chocolately rat food for two. When the regular food returned the rats exhibited anxiety and refused to eat it. When the palatable rat food was reintroduced they overate it until their anxiety subsided.

Sound familiar?

The researchers also looked into the brain chemistry of the rats and found that, “during abstinence from palatable foods, the rats showed increased corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) gene expression and peptide in the amygdala, an area of the brain involved in fear, anxiety and stress responses.”

Study co-author Valentina Sabino, PhD, an assistant professor and co-Director of the Laboratory of Addictive Disorders in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at BUSM stated, “The stress experienced by frequent dieters in abstinence from palatable food has neurobiological similarities to the negative emotional state of drug and alcohol addicts.”

Meanwhile, Kathleen DesMaisons, author of Potatoes Not Prozac, has been noticing drug and alcohol addicts in recovery exhibit addictive eating patterns that mimic their drug or alcohol usage. She’s working on a new book that offers a diet for people to follow. Read more about it here.

Wasn’t there a time in history when opium was considered a good thing and it was given to kids?