We share this article with you in the interest of furthering the St. Francis Health Committee’s goal to educate the school community on health issues. Dr. Barish-Wreden is a member of the committee (and parent of an SF senior).

By Drs. Kay Judge and Maxine Barish-Wreden
Sacramento BEE: Published Sunday, May 15th, 2011

Ever wonder why it’s so hard to stop eating foods like candy, cookies and other sweet stuff once you get started?

Research has suggested that certain foods, especially refined carbohydrates like sugar and flour, act much like narcotics and other addictive substances in the brain, making it very difficult for some people to modulate their intake of these foods.

A new study in the Archives of General Psychiatry seems to shed some light on this. In this study, 48 women were recruited for a weight maintenance study.

The women were first assessed for food addiction symptoms using the Yale Food Addiction Scale. Functional magnetic resonance images (FMRIs) were done on their brains when they anticipated being given a chocolate milkshake, and then again after they consumed the milkshake.

The researchers found that those women with higher addiction scores at the onset of the study also had greater activation in the parts of the brain that are associated with addiction, and reduced activation in the parts of the brain that suppress food intake. And the scientists found that the areas of the brain that lit up on the MRI scans were the same areas that light up when people are exposed to addictive drugs.

The authors concluded that the compulsive intake of addictive foods like chocolate may be driven by the anticipation of reward in the brain, very much like drug abuse.

This is a landmark study in that it demonstrated the correlation between addictive eating behavior and associated changes in the brain. It also provides one more piece of information about why it is so difficult for people to lose weight and keep it off.

For most people who are trying to lose weight, achieving your desired weight often leads to a loosening up of your dietary restrictions. If you then return to your old patterns, you are likely to end up addicted to those highly refined substances again.

What can one do to avoid this trap?

Much the way an addict must avoid addictive substances, most people who are battling with their weight must avoid addictive foods – only then will food cravings tend to lessen and even disappear.

This can be a Herculean task given the massively unhealthy food environment in which we dwell.

So before we blame ourselves or others for being fat, we might want to question why we as a society tolerate the production, processing and marketing of a massively unhealthy food supply to the public, especially those that are most vulnerable: our children.

The political and economic forces at play in our country support an agricultural and food production system that is unhealthy and that continues to foster the increasing epidemic of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and arthritis. At the same time, we bemoan the unsustainable expense of the health-care system.

This year our nation will spend about 2.5 trillion dollars on health care – and experts estimate that 75 percent of this will be spent on chronic diseases that are preventable or reversible.

These kinds of expenditures are unsustainable – we will bankrupt our country if we do not find the courage to challenge the food production system, demand healthy food in our schools and our communities and start to reclaim our capacity for wellness.

We hope you join in the crusade. For more information or to get involved in the creation of a healthier food environment, check outwww.slowfoodusa.org or www.pcrm.org (the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine).

Drs. Kay Judge and Maxine Barish-Wreden are medical directors of Sutter Downtown Integrative Medicine program.