The Food Fix Is In (link to article) - FULL ARTICLE HERE

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The food fix is in

By Dr. Neal D. Barnard

Special to the Sentinel

July 13, 2003

 

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/custom/science/orl-

insfoodopiates071303jul13\

..story

 

Have you ever had a serious binge on cookies or cake? Or an

impulse-driven feast at the candy machine? Perhaps a nosedive into a

cheese-laden monster burger that left you bloated and regretful?

 

If so, it may not have been your fault -- or at least not yours

alone. When it comes to dietary indiscretions, scientists are now

pointing the finger of blame in a surprising direction. Binges and

even serious food addictions are not caused by weak willpower, a bad

childhood, or an oral personality. New evidence shows they are

triggered by the foods, themselves. That is to say, certain foods

spark the release of chemicals within the brain that make us feel

good, stimulate our appetites, and push us to consume them again and

again.

 

Disturbingly, it also appears that the food industry has known about

these effects all along and, in fact, has been working hard to

concoct foods that reduce our resistance to rubble.

 

Some food addictions are no secret, of course. Chocolate addiction

has been described in psychiatric journals for years. Chocolate not

only contains caffeine, theobromine and other mild stimulants; it

also triggers the release of opiates within the brain that ensure

that the first cookie out of the bag will never be the last. But

chocolate is not the only devil lurking in the pantry. Studies

suggest that sugar, cheese, and meat have drug-like effects, too.

 

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore zeroed in on

sugar in the early 1990s, finding that it clearly influences brain

function in infants as young as one to two days of age. The

researchers dribbled tiny amounts of sugar water into babies' mouths,

finding that it made them cry noticeably less and blunted their

reactions to the heel sticks used to draw blood samples, while plain

water did nothing. What is happening is this: As sugar touches the

tongue, the taste buds send a nerve impulse to the brain,

causing opiates to be released. In turn, these opiates trigger the

release of dopamine, the brain's ultimate pleasure chemical.

 

Of all the potentially addicting foods, cheese may be the most

complex. In research studies using vegan and vegetarian diets to

control cholesterol or reduce body weight, most participants soon

forget the lure of ice cream, sour cream, and even burgers and

chicken. But for many people, the taste for cheese lingers on and on.

Yes, 70 percent of its calories may come from waist-augmenting fat,

and, ounce for ounce, it may harbor more cholesterol than a steak.

But that cheese habit is tough to break.

 

Why is cheese so addicting? Certainly not because of its aroma, which

is perilously close to old socks. The first hint of a biochemical

explanation came in 1981, when scientists at Wellcome Research

Laboratories in Research Triangle Park, N.C., found a substance in

dairy products that looked remarkably like morphine. After a complex

series of tests, they determined that, surprisingly enough, it

actually was morphine. By a fluke of nature,

the enzymes that produce opiates are not confined to poppies -- they

also hide inside cows' livers. So traces of morphine can pass into

the animal's bloodstream and end up in milk and milk products. The

amounts are far too small to explain cheese's appeal. But

nonetheless, the discovery led scientists on their search for opiate

compounds in dairy products.

 

And they found them. Opiates hide inside casein, the main dairy

protein. As casein molecules are digested, they break apart to

release tiny opiate molecules, called casomorphins. One of these

compounds has about one-tenth the opiate strength of morphine. The

especially addicting power of cheese may be due to the fact that the

process of cheese-making removes water, lactose, and whey proteins so

that casein is concentrated. Scientists are now trying to tease out

whether these opiate molecules work strictly within the digestive

tract or whether they pass into the bloodstream and reach the brain

directly.

 

So why aren't we all addicted to chocolate or cheese? Apparently,

foods affect different people differently. Women tend to be more

attracted to sweets, especially chocolate. Men are more likely to

consider meat their indispensable food. A recent survey found that

one in four would not give up meat for a week, even if they were paid

$1,000 to do it. It may be loaded with cholesterol and fat, and

cardiologists may plead for moderation, but for many men, meat is the

last food they would ever want to give up. That sort of response

strongly suggests that we are dealing with more than preference, and

are likely touching on an addiction.

 

Could an opiate effect be the reason why meat can be so addicting?

Mounting evidence says yes. In some of the most telling studies,

researchers give opiate-blocking drugs to volunteers and then measure

their effects on food intake. Naloxone, for example, is used in

emergency rooms to treat drug overdoses. It blocks the opiate

receptors in the brain and stops the life-threatening effects of

heroin or morphine. When this opiate-blocker is given to a dedicated

meat lover, meat loses a sizable part of its appeal.

The same appears to be true for chocolate, sugar and cheese, adding

further evidence that what keeps us hooked on these foods is not just

their taste or mouth-feel but, rather, specific chemical effects

within the brain.

 

These druglike effects of certain foods helped scientists explain why

we might like a juicy apple, an orange, a banana or a bowl of

cherries, but we never made a late-night run to a convenience store

to buy them. These foods lack the opiate action that keeps you

hooked. But sugar, chocolate, cheese and meat are a different story.

We like fruit; we crave chocolate.

 

None of this is news to the food industry. The chocolate industry has

manipulated its products' nutrient content for decades in hopes of

overpowering your resolve, finding that chocolate bars reach maximal

irresistibility when cocoa butter and sugar are mixed about 50-50, on

a per-calorie basis. You may spend 89 cents on a candy bar, but it

took millions upon millions of dollars of research and

discipline-defeating promotion to waggle that combination of sugar

and fat in front of your taste buds.

 

The cheese industry is miles ahead of them, having gone to great

lengths to identify people who are most vulnerable to addiction. It

dubs them " cheese cravers, " and tracks their age, educational level

and other demographics so as to target them with marketing strategies

that are tough to ignore. With a $200 million annual research and

marketing budget, the dairy industry is not content to have you just

sprinkling a little mozzarella on your salad. It is

looking for those Americans who will eat it straight out of the

package, whatever the cost to their waistlines or cholesterol levels.

 

At a " Cheese Forum " held Dec. 5, 2000, Dick Cooper, the vice

president of Cheese Marketing for Dairy Management Inc., laid out the

industry's scheme for identifying potential addicts and keeping them

hooked. In his slide presentation, which was released to our

organization under the Freedom of Information Act, he asked the

question, " What do we want our marketing program to do? " and then

gave the answer: " Trigger the cheese craving. " He described how, in a

partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the dairy

industry launched Wendy's Cheddar Lover's Bacon Cheeseburger, which

single-handedly pushed 2.25 million pounds of cheese during the

promotion period. That works out to 380 tons of fat and 1.2 tons of

pure cholesterol in the cheese alone. A similar promotion with Pizza

Hut launched the " Ultimate Cheese Pizza, " which added an entire pound

of cheese to a single pizza and sold five million pounds of it during

a six-week promotion in 2000. The presentation concluded with a

cartoon of a playground slide with a large spider web woven to trap

children as they reached the bottom. The caption had one spider

saying to another, " If we pull this off, we'll eat like kings. "

 

So shall we say no to the chocolate hawkers, cheese pushers, sugar

dealers, and steak mongers? Well, evidence shows that breaking bad

food habits is a resoundingly good idea. People who set aside

high-calorie foods slim down significantly. If they have diabetes or

hypertension, these conditions improve. Men who avoid dairy products

have about one-third less prostate cancer risk, compared to men who

consume them frequently, and those who avoid meat cut their

colon-cancer risk by two-thirds.

 

For many, the question is not whether to break habits, but how.

Luckily, recognizing that food habits are like other addictions helps

us understand what it takes to win the battle. Willpower was never

much of a match for seriously bad food habits, and moderation is

generally useless. Just as it is easier to quit smoking than to " cut

down, " it is far easier to set aside a troublesome food entirely than

to tease yourself with " reasonable " amounts of it on a daily basis.

Addiction experts also focus on the short term, aiming to wean you

away from a bad habit for a day, a week, or a month at

most, but not demanding any long-term commitments that would seem

overly daunting. We can further attack food cravings by specifically

choosing foods that steady your blood sugar, being sure to eat enough

foods to prevent the hunger that accentuates cravings, and, most

importantly, learning about healthier choices that satisfy the taste

buds while luring you away from unhealthy temptations. My research

team uses these techniques routinely as we guide people back to

health.

 

How are food manufacturers reacting to the new science of food

addictions?

Not with mea culpas or a new line of organic produce, unfortunately.

Instead, they are circling the wagons. Anticipating that health

advocates will pound them with lawsuits, just as they did the tobacco

industry, they have called on Congress to ban such actions. On June

19, the House Judiciary Committee heard testimony on the " Personal

Responsibility in Food Consumption Act, " which would bar citizens

from suing producers of products that contributed to obesity-related

disorders. Food industry lobbyists are now working the bill on

Capitol Hill.

 

Health advocates call the measure premature at best. The full range

of the industry's efforts to create and sustain addictions is not yet

known. So while many people were understandably skeptical of the

fast-food lawsuits filed last summer on behalf of obese and diabetic

fast-food customers, many health advocates have been uneasy about

giving industry a blanket exemption from liability.

 

Meanwhile, the government continues to track statistics showing that

more than 65 percent of American adults are now overweight, that Type

2 diabetes is being diagnosed in younger and younger age groups, and

that the artery damage that eventually leads to heart disease is now

routinely found in high school children. The new science of addiction

may show, if nothing else, just how hard these problems will be to

tackle.

 

Neal D. Barnard, M.D., is the author of " Breaking the Food Seduction "

(St. Martin's Press, 2003). He is also president of the Physicians

Committee for Responsible Medicine and an adjunct associate professor

of medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine in

Washington, D.C. He wrote this for the Sentinel.

 

 

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