Sugar addiction
Encyclopedia
Sugar addiction is a perceived difficulty controlling intake of sweet foods or beverages. Although the term itself is not generally used to refer to any scientific construct, mounting evidence suggests that under certain conditions, consumption of sweets
or sugar
may indeed become addiction
-like.
.
There has been reference to the idea of sugar addiction in the popular literature for a number of years. In 1998, Kathleen DesMaisons outlined the concept of sugar addiction as a measurable physiological state caused by activation of mu opioid
receptors in the brain. Her work extracted data from studies done by Blass showing that sugar acted as an analgesic drug whose effects could be blocked by a morphine blocker. Acting on years of anecdotal evidence from her work in the field of addiction, DesMaisons noted that dependence on sugar followed the same track outlined in the DSM IV for other drugs of abuse.
Since that time, a growing body of laboratory evidence has corroborated DesMaisons' hypothesis. Bart Hoebel at Princeton began showing the neurochemical effects of sugar, noting that sugar might serve as a gate drug for other drugs.
In 2008, Nicole Avena published data stating that sugar affects opioids and dopamine in the brain, and thus might be expected to have addictive potential. She references "Bingeing," "withdrawal," "craving" and "cross-sensitization" are each given operational definitions and demonstrated behaviorally with sugar bingeing as the reinforcer. These behaviors are then related to neurochemical changes in the brain that also occur with addictive drugs. Neural adaptations include changes in dopamine and opioid receptor binding, enkephalin mRNA expression and dopamine and acetylcholine release in the nucleus accumbens.
The sugar industry claims that similar effects have been reported for rats given solutions that tasted sweet, but contained no calories. However, caloric value may not be the issue. Sugar and the taste of sweet stimulate the brain by activating beta endorphin receptor sites. These are the same chemicals activated by heroin and morphine.
Some psychologist
s maintain that results of this type may indeed provide a new way of looking at overeating
, but that much caution should be exercised about using them to effectively put sugar in the same category as drugs
. They believe there is some overlap between the systems that control food intake and addiction but this cannot yet unambiguously be said to necessarily make certain foods addictive.
Some animals, and some people, may become overly dependent on sweet food, particularly if they periodically stop eating and then binge
. This may relate to eating disorders such as bulimia. It would probably be more correct to refer to the laboratory rats referred to above as "sugar-dependent" rather than "addicted." In general, to be classified as an addiction, reproducible "double blind" experiments would have to show that the experimental subjects exhibited all three elements that make up the definition of this term: a behavioral pattern of increased intake and changes in brain chemistry; then signs of withdrawal and further changes in brain chemistry upon deprivation; and third, signs of craving and relapse after withdrawal is over.
In 2003, a report was commissioned by two U.N. agencies, the World Health Organization
and the Food and Agriculture Organization
, compiled by a panel of 30 international experts. It stated that sugar should not account for more than 10% of a healthy diet.http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2003/pr20/en/ In contrast, the US Sugar Association http://www.sugar.org/ insists that other evidence indicates that a quarter of our food and drink intake can safely consist of sugar. However, this contradicts the sugar industry's criticism of the research discussed above:
"The rats were given a drug to block their opiate-receptors and showed withdrawal signs typical of drug-addicted rats- teeth chattering, paw tremors, and head shakes."
Since the preliminary work at Princeton, a number of studies have continued and expanded the assertion for the evidence of sugar addiction.
SweetS
was a Japanese idol group. Put together through auditions, the group debuted in 2003 on the avex trax label. Although the group met minor success, they disbanded after three years with the release of a final single in June 2006....
or sugar
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...
may indeed become addiction
Behavioral addiction
Behavioral addiction is a form of addiction which does not rely on drugs or alcohol. Increasingly referred to as process addiction or non-substance-related addiction ) behavioral addiction includes a compulsion to repeatedly engage in an action until said action causes serious negative consequences...
-like.
Scientific evidence
Any concept of sugar addiction is complicated by a lack of consensus on the actual definition of addictionBehavioral addiction
Behavioral addiction is a form of addiction which does not rely on drugs or alcohol. Increasingly referred to as process addiction or non-substance-related addiction ) behavioral addiction includes a compulsion to repeatedly engage in an action until said action causes serious negative consequences...
.
There has been reference to the idea of sugar addiction in the popular literature for a number of years. In 1998, Kathleen DesMaisons outlined the concept of sugar addiction as a measurable physiological state caused by activation of mu opioid
Opioid
An opioid is a psychoactive chemical that works by binding to opioid receptors, which are found principally in the central and peripheral nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract...
receptors in the brain. Her work extracted data from studies done by Blass showing that sugar acted as an analgesic drug whose effects could be blocked by a morphine blocker. Acting on years of anecdotal evidence from her work in the field of addiction, DesMaisons noted that dependence on sugar followed the same track outlined in the DSM IV for other drugs of abuse.
Since that time, a growing body of laboratory evidence has corroborated DesMaisons' hypothesis. Bart Hoebel at Princeton began showing the neurochemical effects of sugar, noting that sugar might serve as a gate drug for other drugs.
In 2008, Nicole Avena published data stating that sugar affects opioids and dopamine in the brain, and thus might be expected to have addictive potential. She references "Bingeing," "withdrawal," "craving" and "cross-sensitization" are each given operational definitions and demonstrated behaviorally with sugar bingeing as the reinforcer. These behaviors are then related to neurochemical changes in the brain that also occur with addictive drugs. Neural adaptations include changes in dopamine and opioid receptor binding, enkephalin mRNA expression and dopamine and acetylcholine release in the nucleus accumbens.
Recent behavioral tests in ratRatRats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...
s further back the idea of an overlap between sweets and drugs. Drug addiction often includes three steps. A person will increase his intake of the drug, experience withdrawal symptoms when access to the drug is cut off and then face an urge to relapse back into drug use. Rats on sugar have similar experiences. Researchers withheld food for 12 hours and then gave rats food plus sugar water. This created a cycle of binging where the animals increased their daily sugar intake until it doubled. When researchers either stopped the diet or administered an opioid blocker the rats showed signs common to drug withdrawal, such as teeth-chattering and the shakes. Early findings also indicate signs of relapse. Rats weaned off sugar repeatedly pressed a lever that previously dispensed the sweet solution.
The sugar industry claims that similar effects have been reported for rats given solutions that tasted sweet, but contained no calories. However, caloric value may not be the issue. Sugar and the taste of sweet stimulate the brain by activating beta endorphin receptor sites. These are the same chemicals activated by heroin and morphine.
Some psychologist
Psychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
s maintain that results of this type may indeed provide a new way of looking at overeating
Overeating
Overeating generally refers to the long-term consumption of excess food in relation to the energy that an organism expends , leading to weight gainingand often obesity. It may be regarded as an eating disorder....
, but that much caution should be exercised about using them to effectively put sugar in the same category as drugs
Drug abuse
Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, refers to a maladaptive pattern of use of a substance that is not considered dependent. The term "drug abuse" does not exclude dependency, but is otherwise used in a similar manner in nonmedical contexts...
. They believe there is some overlap between the systems that control food intake and addiction but this cannot yet unambiguously be said to necessarily make certain foods addictive.
Some animals, and some people, may become overly dependent on sweet food, particularly if they periodically stop eating and then binge
Binge
-People:* Dagmar Anita Binge, German founder of Binge Discs * Ronald Binge, British composer and arranger of light music-See also:A binge is any behavior indulged to excess...
. This may relate to eating disorders such as bulimia. It would probably be more correct to refer to the laboratory rats referred to above as "sugar-dependent" rather than "addicted." In general, to be classified as an addiction, reproducible "double blind" experiments would have to show that the experimental subjects exhibited all three elements that make up the definition of this term: a behavioral pattern of increased intake and changes in brain chemistry; then signs of withdrawal and further changes in brain chemistry upon deprivation; and third, signs of craving and relapse after withdrawal is over.
In 2003, a report was commissioned by two U.N. agencies, the World Health Organization
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...
and the Food and Agriculture Organization
Food and Agriculture Organization
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is a specialised agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and...
, compiled by a panel of 30 international experts. It stated that sugar should not account for more than 10% of a healthy diet.http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2003/pr20/en/ In contrast, the US Sugar Association http://www.sugar.org/ insists that other evidence indicates that a quarter of our food and drink intake can safely consist of sugar. However, this contradicts the sugar industry's criticism of the research discussed above:
Research into sugar addiction was initiated at one research group at Princeton University where they fed rats chow as well as a 25% sugar solution - similar to the sugar concentration of soda-pop. In just 1 month the rats became dependent on their daily dose of sweet stuff, they gradually chose to eat less chow but increased their intake of the sugary drink until it doubled.
"The rats were given a drug to block their opiate-receptors and showed withdrawal signs typical of drug-addicted rats- teeth chattering, paw tremors, and head shakes."
Since the preliminary work at Princeton, a number of studies have continued and expanded the assertion for the evidence of sugar addiction.
Further reading
- Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. (2000). The Sugar Addict's Total Recovery Program. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-44132-X.
- Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. (2008). "Potatoes Not Prozac." Simon & Schuster. ISBN 141655615X
- Avena NM, Hoebel BG. A diet promoting sugar dependency causes behavioral cross-sensitization to a low dose of amphetamine. Neuroscience. 2003;122(1):17-20. PMID 14596845.
- Avena NM, Long KA, Hoebel BG. Sugar-dependent rats show enhanced responding for sugar after abstinence: evidence of a sugar deprivation effect. Physiol Behav. 2005 Mar 16;84(3):359-62. PMID 15763572.
- Blass, E., E. Fitzgerald, P. Kehoe, Interactions between sucrose, pain and isolation distress. Pharmacol Biochem Behav, 1987. 26(3): p. 483-9. PMID 3575365.
- Blass, E.M., A. Shah, Pain-reducing properties of sucrose in human newborns. Chem Senses, 1995. 20(1): p. 29-35. PMID 7796057.
- Carlo Colantuoni, Pedro Rada,, Joseph McCarthy, Caroline Patten, Nicole M. Avena, Andrew Chadeayne, Bartley G. Hoebel. Evidence That Intermittent, Excessive Sugar Intake Causes Endogenous Opioid Dependence. Obesity Research 10:478-488 (2002) PMID 12055324.
- Cleary, J., et al., Naloxone effects on sucrose-motivated behavior. Psychopharmacology (Berl), 1996. 126(2): p. 110-4. PMID 8856829.
- Colantuoni C, Schwenker J, McCarthy J, Rada P, Ladenheim B, Cadet JL, Schwartz GJ, Moran TH, Hoebel BG. Excessive sugar intake alters binding to dopamine and mu-opioid receptors in the brain. Neuroreport. 2001 Nov 16;12(16):3549-52. PMID 3801926.
- Czirr, S.A., L.D. Reid, Demonstrating morphine's potentiating effects on sucrose-intake. Brain Res Bull, 1986. 17(5): p. 639-42. 15085560.
- D'Anci, K.E., R.B. Kanarek, Naltrexone antagonism of morphine antinociception in sucrose- and chow-fed rats. Nutr Neurosci, 2004. 7(1): p. 57-61. PMID PMID 8853191.
- D'Anci, K.E., R.B. Kanarek, and R. Marks-Kaufman, Duration of sucrose availability differentially alters morphine-induced analgesia in rats. Pharmacol Biochem Behav, 1996. 54(4): p. 693-7.
- Drewnowski, A., M.R. Greenwood. Cream and sugar: human preferences for high-fat foods. Physiol Behav, 1983. 30(4): p. 629-33. PMID 6878464.
- Drewnowski, A., et al., Taste responses and preferences for sweet high-fat foods: evidence for opioid involvement. Physiol Behav, 1992. 51(2): p. 371-9. PMID 1313591.
- Drewnowski, A., et al., Naloxone, an opiate blocker, reduces the consumption of sweet high-fat foods in obese and lean female binge eaters. Am J Clin Nutr, 1995. 61(6): p. 1206-12.
- Erlanson-Albertsson, C., Sugar triggers our reward-system. Sweets release opiates which stimulates the appetite for sucrose—insulin can depress it. Lakartidningen, 2005. 102(21): p. 1620-2, 1625, 1627. PMID 15962882.
- Fantino, M., J. Hosotte, M. Apfelbaum. An opioid antagonist, naltrexone, reduces preference for sucrose in humans. Am J Physiol, 1986. 251(1 Pt 2): p. R91-6. PMID 3728712.
- Fullerton, D.T., et al., Sugar, opioids and binge eating. Brain Res Bull, 1985. 14(6): p. 673-80.
- Kampov-Polevoy, A.B., et al., Sweet preference predicts mood altering effect of and impaired control over eating sweet foods. Eat Behav, 2006. 7(3): p. 181-7. PMID 16843219.
- Kanarek, R.B., S. Mandillo, C. Wiatr. Chronic sucrose intake augments antinociception induced by injections of mu but not kappa opioid receptor agonists into the periaqueductal gray matter in male and female rats. Brain Res, 2001. 920(1-2): p. 97-105. PMID 11716815.
- Laeng, B., K.C. Berridge, C.M. Butter. Pleasantness of a sweet taste during hunger and satiety: effects of gender and "sweet tooth". Appetite, 1993. 21(3): p. 247-54. PMID 8141596.
- Leventhal, L., et al., Selective actions of central mu and kappa opioid antagonists upon sucrose intake in sham-fed rats. Brain Res, 1995. 685(1-2): p. 205-10. PMID 7583248.
- Levine, A.S., C.M. Kotz, B.A. Gosnell. Sugars and fats: the neurobiology of preference. J Nutr, 2003. 133(3): p. 831S-834S. PMID 12612162.
- Levine, A.S., et al., Opioids and consummatory behavior. Brain Res Bull, 1985. 14(6): p. 663-72. PMID 2992720.
- Rada P, Avena NM, Hoebel BG. Daily bingeing on sugar repeatedly releases dopamine in the accumbens shell. Neuroscience. 2005;134(3):737-44. PMID 15987666.
- Schoenbaum, G.M., R.J. Martin, D.S. Roane. Relationships between sustained sucrose-feeding and opioid tolerance and withdrawal. Pharmacol Biochem Behav, 1989. 34(4): p. 911-4. PMID 2623045.
- Spangler R, Wittkowski KM, Goddard NL, Avena NM, Hoebel BG, Leibowitz SF. Opiate-like effects of sugar on gene expression in reward areas of the rat brain. Brain Res Mol Brain Res. 2004 May 19;124(2):134-42. PMID 15135221.