Food Addiction: Could It Explain Why 70 Percent of Americans Are Fat?

Our government and food industry both encourage more "personal responsibility" when it comes to battling the obesity epidemic and its associated diseases. They say people should exercise more self-control, make better choices, avoid overeating, and reduce their intake of sugar-sweetened drinks and processed food. We are led to believe that there is no good food or bad food, that it's all a matter of balance. This sounds good in theory, except for one thing...

New discoveries in science prove that industrially processed, sugar-, fat- and salt-laden food -- food that is made in a plant rather than grown on a plant, as Michael Pollan would say -- is biologically addictive.

Imagine a foot-high pile of broccoli, or a giant bowl of apple slices. Do you know anyone who would binge broccoli or apples? On other hand, imagine a mountain of potato chips or a whole bag of cookies, or a pint of ice cream. Those are easy to imagining vanishing in an unconscious, reptilian brain eating frenzy. Broccoli is not addictive, but cookies, chips, or soda absolutely can become addictive drugs.

The "just say no" approach to drug addiction hasn't fared to well, and it won't work for our industrial food addiction, either. Tell a cocaine or heroin addict or an alcoholic to "just say no" after that first snort, shot, or drink. It's not that simple. There are specific biological mechanisms that drive addictive behavior. Nobody chooses to be a heroin addict, cokehead, or drunk. Nobody chooses to be fat, either. The behaviors arise out of primitive neurochemical reward centers in the brain that override normal willpower and overwhelm our ordinary biological signals that control hunger. Consider:

• Why do cigarette smokers continue to smoke even though they know smoking will give them cancer and heart disease?
• Why do less than 20 percent of alcoholics successfully quit drinking?
• Why do most addicts continue to use cocaine and heroin despite their lives being destroyed?
• Why does quitting caffeine lead to irritability and headaches?

It is because these substances are all biologically addictive.

Why is it so hard for obese people to lose weight despite the social stigma and health consequences such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and even cancer, even though they have an intense desire to lose weight? It is not because they want to be fat. It is because certain types of food are addictive.

Food made of sugar, fat, and salt can be addictive. Especially when combined in secret ways that the food industry will not share or make public. We are biologically wired to crave these foods and eat as much of them as possible. We all know about cravings, but what does the science tell us about food and addiction, and what are the legal and policy implications if a certain food is, in fact, addictive?

The Science and Nature of Food Addiction

Let's examine the research and the similarities between high-sugar, energy-dense, fatty and salty processed and junk food and cocaine, heroin, and nicotine. We'll start by reviewing the diagnostic criteria for substance dependence or addiction found in the bible of psychiatric diagnosis, the DSM-IV, and look at how that relates to food addiction:

• Substance is taken in larger amount and for longer period than intended (a classic symptom in people who habitually overeat).
• Persistent desire or repeated unsuccessful attempts to quit. (Consider the repeated attempts at diet so many overweight people go through.)
• Much time/activity is spent to obtain, use, or recover. (Those repeated attempts to lose weight take time.)
• Important social, occupational, or recreational activities given up or reduced. (I see this in many patients who are overweight or obese.)
• Use continues despite knowledge of adverse consequences (e.g., failure to fulfill role obligation, use when physically hazardous). (Anyone who is sick and fat wants to lose weight, but without help few are capable of making the dietary changes that would lead to this outcome.)
• Tolerance (marked increase in amount; marked decrease in effect). (In other words you have to keep eating more and more just to feel "normal" or not experience withdrawal.)
• Characteristic withdrawal symptoms; substance taken to relieve withdrawal. (Many people undergo a "healing crisis" that has many of the same symptoms as withdrawal when removing certain foods from their diet.)

Few of us are free from this addictive pattern. If you examine your own behavior and relationship with sugar, in particular, you will likely find that your behavior around sugar and the biological effects of overconsumption of sugar match up perfectly. Many of the criteria above are likely to apply to you.

Researchers from Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity validated a "food addiction" scale.(i) Here are a few of the points on the scale that are used to determine if you have a food addiction. Does any of this sound familiar? If it does, you may be an "industrial food addict."

1. I find that when I start eating certain foods, I end up eating much more than I had planned.
2. Not eating certain types of food or cutting down on certain types of food is something I worry about.
3. I spend a lot of time feeling sluggish or lethargic from overeating.
4. There have been times when I consumed certain foods so often or in such large quantities that I spent time dealing with negative feelings from overeating instead of working, spending time with my family or friends, or engaging in other important activities or recreational activities that I enjoy.
5. I kept consuming the same types of food or the same amount of food even though I was having emotional and/or physical problems.
6. Over time, I have found that I need to eat more and more to get the feeling I want, such as reduced negative emotions or increased pleasure.
7. I have had withdrawal symptoms when I cut down or stopped eating certain foods, including physical symptoms, agitation, or anxiety. (Please do not include withdrawal symptoms caused by cutting down on caffeinated beverages such as soda pop, coffee, tea, energy drinks, etc.)
8. My behavior with respect to food and eating causes significant distress.
9. I experience significant problems in my ability to function effectively (daily routine, job/school, social activities, family activities, health difficulties) because of food and eating.

Based on these criteria and others, many of us, including most obese children, are "addicted" to industrial food.

Here are some of the scientific findings confirming that food can, indeed, be addictive(ii):

1. Sugar stimulates the brain's reward centers through the neurotransmitter dopamine, exactly like other addictive drugs.
2. Brain imagining (PET scans) shows that high-sugar and high-fat foods work just like heroin, opium, or morphine in the brain.(iii)
3. Brain imaging (PET scans) shows that obese people and drug addicts have lower numbers of dopamine receptors, making them more likely to crave things that boost dopamine.
4. Foods high in fat and sweets stimulate the release of the body's own opioids (chemicals like morphine) in the brain.
5. Drugs we use to block the brain's receptors for heroin and morphine (naltrexone) also reduce the consumption and preference for sweet, high-fat foods in both normal weight and obese binge eaters.
6. People (and rats) develop a tolerance to sugar -- they need more and more of the substance to satisfy themselves -- just like they do for drugs of abuse like alcohol or heroin.
7. Obese individuals continue to eat large amounts of unhealthy foods despite severe social and personal negative consequences, just like addicts or alcoholics.
8. Animals and humans experience "withdrawal" when suddenly cut off from sugar, just like addicts detoxifying from drugs.
9. Just like drugs, after an initial period of "enjoyment" of the food, the user no longer consumes them to get high but to feel normal.

Remember the movie Super Size Me, where Morgan Spurlock ate three super-sized meals from McDonald's every day? What struck me about that film was not that he gained 30 pounds or that his cholesterol went up, or even that he got a fatty liver. What was surprising was the portrait it painted of the addictive quality of the food he ate. At the beginning of the movie, when he ate his first supersized meal, he threw it up, just like a teenager who drinks too much alcohol at his first party. By the end of the movie, he only felt "well" when he ate that junk food. The rest of the time he felt depressed, exhausted, anxious, and irritable and lost his sex drive, just like an addict or smoker withdrawing from his drug. The food was clearly addictive.

This problems with food addiction are compounded by the fact that food manufacturers refuse to release any internal data on how they put ingredients together to maximize consumption of their food products, despite requests from researchers. In his book The End of Overeating, David Kessler, M.D., the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, describes the science of how food is made into drugs by the creation of hyperpalatable foods that lead to neuro-chemical addiction.

This binging leads to profound physiological consequences that drive up calorie consumption and lead to weight gain. In a Harvard study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, overweight adolescents consumed an extra 500 calories a day when allowed to eat junk food as compared to days when they weren't allowed to eat junk food. They ate more because the food triggered cravings and addiction. Like an alcoholic after the first drink, once these kids started eating processed food full of the sugar, fat, and salt that triggered their brain's reward centers, they couldn't stop. They were like rats in a cage.(iv)

Stop and think about this for one minute. If you were to eat 500 more calories in a day, that would equal 182,500 calories a year. Let's see, if you have to eat an extra 3,500 calories to gain one pound, that's a yearly weight gain of 52 pounds!

If high-sugar, high-fat, calorie-rich, nutrient-poor, processed, fast, junk food is indeed addictive, what does that mean? How should that influence our approach to obesity? What implications does it have for government policies and regulation? Are there legal implications? If we are allowing and even promoting addictive substances in our children's diets, how should we handle that?

I can assure you, Big Food isn't going to make any changes voluntarily. They would rather ignore this science. They have three mantras about food.

1. It's all about choice. Choosing what you eat is about personal responsibility. Government regulation controlling how you market food or what foods you can eat leads to a nanny state, food "fascists," and interference with our civil liberties.
2. There are no good foods and bad foods. It's all about amount. So no specific foods can be blamed for the obesity epidemic.
3. Focus on education about exercise not diet. As long as you burn off those calories, it shouldn't matter what you eat.

Unfortunately, this is little more than propaganda from an industry interested in profit, not in nourishing the nation.

Do We Really Have a Choice About What We Eat?

The biggest sham in food industry strategy and government food policy is advocating and emphasizing individual choice and personal responsibility to solve our obesity and chronic disease epidemic. We are told that if people just didn't eat so much, exercised more, and took care of themselves, we would be fine. We don't need to change our policies or environment. We don't want the government telling us what to do. We want free choice.

But are your choices free, or is Big Food driving behavior through insidious marketing techniques?

The reality is that many people live in food deserts where they can't buy an apple or carrot, or live in communities that have no sidewalks or where it is unsafe to be out walking. We blame the fat person. But how can we blame a two-year-old for being fat? How much choice does he or she have?

We live in toxic food environment, a nutritional wasteland. School lunchrooms and vending machines overflow with junk food and "sports drinks." Most of us don't even know what we're eating. Fifty percent of meals are eaten outside the home, and most home-cooked meals are simply microwavable industrial food. Restaurants and chains provide no clear menu labeling. Did you know that a single order of Outback Steakhouse cheese fries is 2,900 calories, or that a Starbucks venti mocha latte is 508 calories?

Environmental factors (like advertising, lack of menu labeling, and others) and the addictive properties of "industrial food," when added together, override our normal biological or psychological control mechanisms. To pretend that changing this is beyond the scope of government responsibility or that creating policy to help manage such environmental factors would lead to a "nanny state" is simply an excuse for Big Food to continue its unethical practices. Here are some ways we can change our food environment:

• Build the real cost of industrial food into the price. Incude its impact on health care costs and lost productivity.
• Subsidize the production of fruits and vegetables. 80 percent of government subsidies presently go to soy and corn, which are used to create much of the junk food we consume. We need to rethink subsidies and provide more for smaller farmers and a broader array of fruits and vegetables.
• Incentivize supermarkets to open in poor communities. Poverty and obesity go hand in hand. One reason is the food deserts we see around the nation. Poor people have a right to high-quality food, too. We need to create ways to provide it to them.
• End food marketing to children. 50 other countries worldwide have done this, why haven't we?
• Change the school lunchroom. The national school lunch program in its present form is a travesty. Unless we want the next generation to be fatter and sicker than we are, we need better nutrition education and better food in our schools.
• Build community support programs with a new workforce of community health workers. These people would be able to support individuals in making better food choices.

We can alter the default conditions in the environment that foster and promote addictive behavior.(v) It's simply a matter of public and political will. If we don't, we will face an ongoing epidemic of obesity and illness across the nation. For more information on how we can manage the food crisis in this country, see the diet and nutrition section of drhyman.com.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, M.D.

References

(i) Gearhardt, A.N., Corbin, W.R., and K.D. 2009. Brownell. Preliminary validation of the Yale Food Addiction Scale. Appetite. 52(2): 430-436.

(ii) Colantuoni, C., Schwenker, J., McCarthy, P., et al. 2001. Excessive sugar intake alters binding to dopamine and mu-opioid receptors in the brain. Neuroreport. 12(16): 3549-3552.

(iii) Volkow, N.D., Wang, G.J., Fowler, J.S., et al. 2002. "Nonhedonic" food motivation in humans involves dopamine in the dorsal striatum and methylphenidate amplifies this effect. Synapse. 44(3): 175-180.

(iv) Ebbeling CB, Sinclair KB, Pereira MA, Garcia-Lago E, Feldman HA, Ludwig DS. Compensation for energy intake from fast food among overweight and lean adolescents. JAMA. 2004 Jun 16;291(23):2828-2833.

(v) Brownell, K.D., Kersh, R., Ludwig. D.S., et al. 2010. Personal responsibility and obesity: A constructive approach to a controversial issue. Health Aff (Millwood). 29(3): 379-387.

 

 

 

Follow Mark Hyman, MD on Twitter: www.twitter.com/markhymanmd

Comments

[Keith DeBoer]

12:48 PM on 11/16/2010

What a fantastic article. The problem clearly outlined with solutions given at the end. This is a huge problem for our society. Their is responsibility at very level: government, industry and individual citizens. First step is to raise awareness as to the toxic food culture we have allowed to grow up around us and then to do something about by urging government and also voting with our consumer dollars and say no to chemical laden, over processed, artificial food. Its time to buy organic and make time to eat at home, telling the current food industry that we don't want what they are selling.

[Drumlib]

11:37 PM on 10/24/2010

A big part of the problem is the way the FDA has consistently worked AGAINST the health interests of consumers. They refuse to even make corporations inform us by labeling Genetically-Modified Frankenfoods. They did the same thing with milk from cows given bovine growth hormones. And there are all sorts of loopholes that are used to sneak MSG into our foods.

Instead of informing consumers, our tax dollars are wasted raiding raw food co-ops and trying to ban health-building herbs and supplements. The cause of this corruption is clear -- we gave the government to much power over our personal lives when we let them BAN substances instead of limiting governments role to assuring that consumers are informed about what they buy.

Unless we take a principled stand against this, the government will continue to divide and conquer us by demonizing whatever they want to ban. Be it a raw food co-op, a cancer patient with medical marijuana, or a recreational drug user, the government has no business deciding what we can and cannot consume. The government should give consumers accurate information, not point guns at us.

[Debbie McPherson]

11:06 AM on 10/25/2010

Drumlib

Good post. And of course, the answer as to why FDA will not protect us is simple - follow the money. Big Food, Big Agri, and Big Pharma buy their way to clear FDA - like all of our governmnet these days they do NOT work for the protection of consumers or the "greater good" - they work for big fat bribes. If Washinton were not "a bipartisan cesspool of corruption" as one blogger put it, we woulld have a useful FDA keeping us safe and demanding that our packaged food not kill us with hideous amounts of sugar. You would think even the greedy, corrupted pigs in Washington would want a safe food supply - but self serving, bribe seeking trumps all else in Congress.
And yes, it's a wonderful thing that Obama stands ready to use our tax dollars to sue California and enforce federal laws against maijuana which poses few if any health risk - but heaven forbid he go against his campaign contributors in Big Agri and all and do something to curb the epidemic that is killing Americans and driving healthcare costs - like sugar.

[Renzo Bruni]

04:44 PM on 10/26/2010

Good ideas but these statements of outrage above do not hit the nail exactly on the head.
A majority of funding for the day to day running of the FDA is derived directly from funds provided by BigPharma for the evaluation of their products.
This is tantamount to hiring your own biographer and paying him/her in installments after you read the chapters one by one. It is not accurate to say that this form of payment constitutes bribery. It is fascism (the merger of state and corporations). Now on the other hand, corporations giving money to election campaigns of Senators and Presidents is bribery, but it is legal bribery since the Senators themselves and the Presidents all support the practice with careful lawmaking. Legal but wrong. Like much of what this country has come to stand for.
I do not know how FAA and other regulatory agencies derive their funding. Someone should investigate and publish (unless that is prohibited bythe Patriot Act of course).

[Trittydi]

05:21 PM on 10/25/2010

Yes, yes, yes ... thank you.
*

[DrP]

10:54 PM on 10/24/2010

For the most part, I agree with this article. However, Dr. Hyman continues to make the fatal error of including "high-fat" as a culprit in the obesity epidemic. He needs to make it clear that it is processed fats that must be avoided, such as vegetable oils and margarines, and of course the transfats.
Naturally occuring fats in meat and dairy are quite healthy and are the preferable nutrient for many of the obese who are usually that way because they are insulin-resistance. It is carbs in general, not just sugar, that are addictive and behind the obesity crisis.
I await with great anticipation the December release of Gary Taubes's new book "Why we are fat and what to do about it." No doubt his book will not make the same errors as Dr. Hyman makes in this post. I highly recommend Taubes to everyone. The advance publicity implies that this book will be a more readable version of his masterpiece "Good Calories, Bad Calories." But, will the medical establishment pay attention? Until they do, I fear so many will continue to suffer.

[Renzo Bruni]

04:34 PM on 10/26/2010

You state a good case imprecisely. Not all vegetable oils are "bad" although all transfats are. Canola oil is in fact healthy, containing a favorable mix of omega 3/6s. As is OLIVE OIL.
Taubes is in fact extremely well informed and he is as well an extremely good educator (speaker, writer etc).
You can find both Taubes and Lustig on UToob explaining the FACTS:
"Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology gives a rather complex (at times) lecture to medical personnel at a grand rounds called The Bitter Truth at http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bitter+truth&aq=f
and Gary Taubes (MIT graduate) lecturing at Dartmouth in 2009 (7 sequential videos 10 min each)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIGV9VOOtew
I highly recommend BOTH for the truth, the facts, and the whole truth. Nothing is as it seems after all.

[mamababa]

09:52 PM on 10/24/2010

Here, I'll explain why Americans are fat: They Eat Too Much.

[elcerritan]

10:22 PM on 10/24/2010

mamababa, we agree on something! LOL!

[mamababa]

11:16 PM on 10/24/2010

Haha! Cheers, elcerritan!

[DrP]

11:25 AM on 10/25/2010

It would be great if it were that simple, but metabolism is very complex and varies widely by genetic type. It is actually quite easy to be obese and eat a very low-calorie diet if you have insulin-resistance and don't understand that you are glucose (carbohydrate) intolerant. Even if you don't acknowledge that sugar can be addictive, if a person has insulin-resistance and eats a high-grain (sugar) diet, that person will satisfy nutritional needs with his/her diet and will feel constantly ravenous and exhausted. I know, because I made that error for years as did most of my family members. Changing to a low-carbohydrate diet has made all the difference in managing weight, blood sugar, mood disorders, energy swings and and other common health issues associated with metabolic syndrome.

[John Scarbrough]

09:41 PM on 10/24/2010

Every time my elbow bends, my mouth flies open. That's got to be the problem.

[Renzo Bruni]

04:59 PM on 10/26/2010

Clearly you cannot see beyond your elbow either, for the truth is available, for those who see, read and think.

[Trittydi]

09:21 PM on 10/24/2010

The problem for children is compounded by the fact that not only are they eating poorly, but they're not getting outside and getting their vitamin D. The first will guarantee you a miserable life - the second will kill you. Vitamin D regulates the immune system. Nearly every cell in your body has VD3 receptors - our bodies have to have it.

You cannot get it from diet and you cannot get enough at most latitudes. We must supplement.

www.vitamindcouncil.org
www.grassrootshealth.net
*

[Trittydi]

09:13 PM on 10/24/2010

Possibly ... but I would like to point out that getting your Vitamin D3 blood serum levels right results in weight loss. Dr. Cannell of the Vitamin D Council recommends levels between 50 -80ng/ml. If you are a cancer survivor, he recommends levels between 90-100ng/ml. For most young adults that means a daily dose of 5,000.

Scientists know that up to 75% of Americans are chronically VD3 deficient.

Additionally - vitamin D deficiency has been implicated in several medical studies in the onset of hypothyroidism - an autoimmune disease that results in weight gain that cannot be lost. (Vitamin D Council records/abstracts of medical studies for autoimmune disorders)

So at the very least - most people reading this are VD3 deficient and should address that concern.

Scientists know that the incidence of chronic disease increases as we move away from the equator - the only problem is that vitamin D3 is dirt cheap, is not patentable, and thus not worth investing in from the pharmaceuticals perspective. Don't expect your doctor to tell you about it. either. My father-in-law was the executive director of the American Academy of Pediatrics for nearly 25 years and the information we gave him stunned him - he had no idea - but he now completely understands its importance .
http://www.radiomartie.com/hot/disease_incidence%20prevention_by_serum_level_chart_0001-1.jpg

Why are governments selling VD3 short
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/11180df8-beaa-11de-b4ab-00144feab49a.html
*

[mac141]

08:07 PM on 10/24/2010

We are living in incredibly stressful times. We have gone through 9/11, are in two wars, the economy crashed in 2008, jobs are scarce, people are losing their homes, we're watching the value of our homes decline and the list goes on. Has anyone ever done studies on the affects of stress and our obese America?

[Voice of doom]

08:55 PM on 10/24/2010

ya, I remeber the parade of fatties that lived through the great depression and second world war...disgusting they were...

[Renzo Bruni]

04:55 PM on 10/26/2010

The stress that is being applied to middle and bottom america (and the rest of the world parenthetically) is because the rich and their employees (senators, CEOs, bank presidents, presidents, etc) are sitting comfortably on their head and necks - like the noose of a constantly busy hangman, pressing the trap door button, reloading and pressing again.
Until the victims see each other as victims, instead of 'others' of whom they are 'afraid', there will be no mass mind, electoral will or significant change. Just read history,. Or Marx. Or Trotsky.

[ascanius001]

06:25 PM on 10/24/2010

Learning to understand how your individual body reacts to the foods you enjoy and then devising a way to deal with that through moderation and exercise is better than avoidance and deprivation. If you put stuff in your mouth, you need to learn what you're going to have to do to use up that energy. If I indulge in chocolate, pastries or pizza (I enjoy the sugar-high sensation), I have learned to go run a few extra miles. I also know to step away from the plate, because I'm going to want more. You CAN have your cake and eat it too. It just requires a little self-awareness. Giving up chocolate eclairs and red wine? Not me.

[iman927]

06:21 PM on 10/24/2010

Tip of advice for anyone trying to reduce dependence on sugary drinks - drink green tea. I lost about 10-15 pounds (which is a lot when you are 5'3") by drinking green tea after dinner instead of having dessert. Green tea is an appetite suppressant and has other things that are good for you, too.

Just my 2 cents.

[no exit]

06:19 PM on 10/24/2010

We've known that sugar is highly addictive for decades, there is nothing "new" about that...it's why sugar exists in some form in very nearly everything we eat and drink.

Reinforcing or enabling the addict's "I can't quit" doesn't help the problem.It isn't easy to quit, but they knew from day one what they were doing was addictive - smoking, drinking, drugs - part of the reason is the sugar those contain. It's the same way with processed sugar in food and drink, although most of us had no idea we were ingesting something we would crave for the rest of their lives.

Processed sugars are not like sugars that occur naturally - people have been warning us about those for decades also; unfortunately the sugar lobby is much stronger than a few weird authors trying to warn us. You're not going to become addicted from eating apples and oranges, you are going to become addicted from swilling pop, alcohol, cakes, ketchup, packaged foods, soup, corn chips, yogurt - well, you name it. Start turning products around and reading the labels, if it ends in -ose, it's a sugar. So are syrups, sweeteners, juices and the list truly goes on and on.

We all laughed back in junior high when the teacher said if we had never started eating sugars there would be no use for toilet paper or toothpaste. I'm pretty sure he was right.

[Trittydi]

09:17 PM on 10/24/2010

Vitamin D3 does amazing things for bones and teeth - more than they ever knew before. When you have optimal VD3 levels your calcium is working at 3-4 times its previous efficiency. Also - be sure to have some K2 in your diet as it is one of VD3's co-factors. The bonus here is that K2 regulates calcium - takes it from where it does not belong (like your blood vessels) and puts it where it does - teeth and bone. It has even been know to heal cracked teeth.
*

[no exit]

09:27 AM on 10/25/2010

I have been taking D3 for some time, but excuse my ignorance, I do not know what K2 is; however, I keep forgetting I'm on the internet so I'll google it!

Interesting information - thank you.

[ScreenName05]

04:33 PM on 10/24/2010

If addiction based on additives is the real problem, then how do you explain all the people who exercise 6 days a week, eat moderately and are as healthy as horses? Might it really be that some people are simply too lazy to make intelligent choices in their lives? Just asking.

[Renzo Bruni]

07:21 PM on 10/24/2010

@ Sceen name 05 - "healthy as horses" I hasten to point out that horses only live 30 years.

[ScreenName05]

04:31 PM on 10/24/2010

Or it could be because they lay around watching television, playing video games and stuffing their faces until they can't breath. But that may be over simplistic.

[friedasboss]

04:08 PM on 10/24/2010

Yes, (junk) food scientists are trained to make food set off basically the same addiction pathways that drugs, including alcohol and cigarette, trigger.

[Debbie McPherson]

02:23 PM on 10/24/2010

Dear Dr.Hyman

Thank you for this wonderful article. With such a large portion of the country suffering from diabetes it is high time that we recognize that Big Food is killing us.

Four months ago I decided to eliminate sugar from my diet - I only had to fight the cravings for about one week and by the third week I wasn't even thinking about sweets anymore. Yesterday I was offered chocolate cake at a party (an old favorite), I took two or three bites and then put it down - much to my surprise the taste was over the top disgustingly SWEET.
The biggest trick is finding sugar free foods. It's nearly impossible - they put it in everything from vegetables to spaghetti sauce to chinese food (check out the new frozen popular Chinese Restaurant food - 27 grams of sugar in one serving!) This is insane.

Why worry about carbon footprints and wars and abortions when we are destroying ourselves with sugar? Our children have been poisoned with everything from their cereal to their sugar added fruit cups. Is it a conspiracy between Big Food and Big Pharma to keep a continuous stream of diabetics on their high priced drugs? Given their massive greed it's easy to imagine such a devious plan.

Time to lead the masses to understand just how much damage is being done and launch a long over due campaign against Big Food and the over use of sugar. This is a problem that can

[Renzo Bruni]

04:30 PM on 10/24/2010

You forgot to mention sausages. They put 'it' in sausages: corn solids, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, glucose, dextrose, dextromaltin, etc.
IN SAUSAGES! Check the labels. Read all the labels, every last one; keep reading them until you know them backwards and forwards.

[DrP]

10:44 PM on 10/24/2010

Although even better advice may be: Don't read labels. If it has a label, don't buy it.

[Debbie McPherson]

10:49 AM on 10/25/2010

Renzo

Sugar is in just about everything - and in some very unlikely places as you stated - even sausages!!
Why the public has not mounted an outraged campaign against Big Food for putting everyone at risk for diabetes is beyond me. Come on health officals, health care workers and educators and parents - where is your outrage!!!
It's easy to imagine a Big Food - Big Pharma connection in wanting to make Americans sick but you would think the medical professional would have some small ethics & integrity left to lead the fight for what is really making us sick!