Are you a sugar addict?
There have been lots of studies done on the addictions people can have to sugar. Well we now know that the parts of the brain effected by addictive drugs are also lighting up with we consume sugars, causing a downward spiral with heavy sugar intake. Does this explain your eating habits?
Check out this article on why addiction centres are getting patients off the drugs, but onto cupcakes.
There have been lots of studies done on the addictions people can have to sugar. Well we now know that the parts of the brain effected by addictive drugs are also lighting up with we consume sugars, causing a downward spiral with heavy sugar intake. Does this explain your eating habits?
Check out this article on why addiction centres are getting patients off the drugs, but onto cupcakes.
Rodney Zimmers was 21
years old and 135 pounds when he got off heroin and cocaine for good.
Three years later, he was still drug free but had ballooned to 250. He
blames his weight gain on the high-calorie, high-sugar food served in
rehabilitation.
“Once I got sober, I
continued to eat all this awful stuff,” said Mr. Zimmers, now 29 and the
founder of Blueprints for Recovery, an all-male treatment facility near
Prescott, Ariz. “I learned how to be sober, but I didn’t learn how to
take care of all of me. I didn’t know how to cook or grocery shop
because I’d never done it. I didn’t learn any life skills or how to live
like an adult.”
His story is familiar to those in recovery, who often gain significant weight on their road to well-being. It’s not all their fault; most rehabilitation programs haven’t devoted much thought to nutrition.
“The main focus was
just, ‘get them off their substance,’ and the rest will take care of
itself,” said Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross, an eating disorder and addiction
medicine specialist in Denver who has been a consultant to various rehab
centers.
While fruits,
vegetables and a variety of proteins were served in rehab, so were
refined sugars, sodas, energy drinks, sugary juices and
sugary/fatty/salty snacks (the so-called ”hyperpalatables”), all of
which are relatively inexpensive and easy to buy in bulk.
Sugar was also considered a harmless replacement for drugs and alcohol. In fact, AA’s “Big Book”
— the 12 Step bible — suggests that recovering addicts keep candy on
hand. (This may explain why cookies, coffee and plumes of cigarette
smoke are often staples at so many 12 Step meetings.)
But though sweets may
have eased some people’s drug cravings, many ended up “transfer
addicting” from their substance of choice to sugar.
“Once off the drugs,
the brain craves the uber rewards of the hyperpalatables — Mint Milanos,
Oreos, any sugar. An apple’s reward doesn’t cut it,” said Dr. Pamela
Peeke, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland
and author of “The Hunger Fix.”
“So you end up with the transfer addiction,” she added. “Off the cocaine, onto the cupcakes.”
Research has found that food and drugs have similar influence on the brain’s reward center. A 2013 study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported that sugar, not fat, stimulates cravings.
And a widely cited study from that year found that Oreo cookies activated the nucleus accumbens, the brain’s pleasure or reward center, as much as cocaine and morphine, at least in laboratory rats.
This has an effect not only on the addict’s neural pathways, but also on the addict’s psyche and self-esteem.
“Some relapse because
they’re so disgusted with the amount of weight they’ve put on,” said Dr.
Marianne Chai, the medical director at the New York Center for Living,
a recovery facility for adolescents, young adults and their families in
Manhattan. “The mind-set is, ‘I want immediate results.’ They don’t
want to invest the four to six months of strict diet and exercise. So
they live on caffeine and stimulants or sometimes cocaine to lose
weight.”
Now, with more awareness of sugar’s effects on the brain,
some rehab facilities are overhauling their meal plans and hiring
“culinary nutritionists,” certified chefs who are also registered
dietitians.
“We’re not asking
them to live on arugula,” said Dr. Peeke, who is also the senior science
adviser to Elements Behavioral Health, which operates addiction and
eating disorders treatment centers. “We come upon creative, delicious
entrees and snacks that will compete with the junk they’ve been doing
all along, to reclaim that reward center. We’re switching them from bad
fixes to healthy fixes.”
The Center for Living
offers on-site cooking classes for patients and their parents, along
with lectures on nutrition and healthy eating. Patients grow their own
herbs and vegetables on a roof garden, and they are not allowed
processed sugars, caffeine or energy drinks.
“Most of the young
adults don’t know anything about how to pick out food; they’re living on
deli and fast food, and a lot of parents fail and struggle with
self-care and modeling self-care,” said Dr. Chai, who believes that
maintaining a proper diet can play a pivotal role in helping maximize
one’s ability to recover in a “sustainable, lasting way.”
Victoria Abel, a
certified addiction nutritionist in Prescott, Ariz., who customizes
nutrition programs at recovery facilities, said she had “no clue how
desperate the field was for this.”
“Patients are so malnourished, their body’s starving,” she added.
She leads weekly
grocery shopping excursions, where clients learn about healthy foods and
how to read food labels. They’re not allowed to buy any item if the
first four ingredients are some kind of sugar, and dessert is permitted
only once a week. “I’m trying to teach moderation,” she said.
Not every expert
agrees with this treatment path. Dr. Mark Willenbring, the founder of
Alltyr, an addiction treament clinic and consultancy in St. Paul, says
he does not believe that healthy eating is the missing ingredient to
help patients stay drug and alcohol free.
“I think it’s rehab’s
responsibility to provide a nutritious diet with plenty of fruits and
vegetables, not too much red meat and not too much fat, because it’s
healthy,” said Dr. Willenbring, the former director of the Division of
Treatment and Recovery Research at the National Institute on Alcohol
Abuse and Alcoholism. “But is it going to affect recovery? I don’t think
so.”
But those in the trenches are hopeful that the focus on nutrition is a step in the right direction.
Christopher Kennedy
Lawford, the author of many books on addiction, including the recent
“What Addicts Know,” said: “When you’re used to shooting heroin or
drinking a bottle of vodka, sugar seems really benign. It’s hard to take
it seriously.”
But Mr. Lawford, who
was been drug and alcohol free for 23 years and said his first drug was
sugar, is adamant that rehabilitation programs start treating addicts
holistically.
“You can’t get an
addict into recovery until you deal with every aspect of their life,” he
said. “What you think, how you think, how you relate to people, what
you put in your body, how you exercise — it’s all related. And we need
to get smarter about it.”
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/addiction-recovery-weight-gain-nutrition/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&smid=fb-share&_r=3&
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