Quote:
Originally Posted by stevie667
I've read a few studies about food and the reward pathways being stronger than in cocaine, certainly doesn't suprise me.
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I would like to see these. Pubmed would be good, but I have JSTOR access if I need it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by greytone
We are all addicted to food. The chemical changes in our bodies that will occur due to withdrawal are ultimately fatal in every case.
I am overweight and have a time with choices and portion control. But I reserve the use of the word addiction to substances that are used for effect but are not needed for life. I also don't use the word for behaviors or habits.
Here is a shocker. Things that are pleasurable cause the brain to behave in a way that it does with other pleasurable experiences. They are analogous, but they are not the same. The solution is also not the same because abstinence is not possible with diet.
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Addiction is entirely a behavioral/habitual phenomenon, which is frequently confused with dependence, a physiological need to use a substance to function normally. Dependence is different from fulfillment of basic biological needs. A starving man's hunger, a heroin junkie's desperation for the next hit, and a cokehead's fiending for the next line are all distinct biological processes.
If you have difficulty with portion control and food choices, you may have an abnormal FTO or Lpin1 gene. Pleasurable experiences are the same in the brain, but to different extents, although coke and food are slightly different because coke is a triple reuptake inhibitor and acts directly on certain neurological pathways.