Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yaya]

By Amanda Gardner, HealthDay Reporter
HealthDay

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Science is verifying what many overeaters have suspected for a long time: sugar can be addictive.

In fact, the sweetener seems to prompt the same chemical changes in the brain seen in people who abuse drugs such as cocaine and heroin.The findings were to be presented Wednesday at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology's annual meeting, in Nashville.

"Our evidence from an animal model suggests that bingeing on sugar can act in the brain in ways very similar to drugs of abuse," lead researcher Bart Hoebel, a professor of psychology at Princeton University, said during a Dec. 4 teleconference.

"Drinking large amounts of sugar water when hungry can cause behavioral changes and even neurochemical changes in the brain which resemble changes that are produced when animals or people take substances of abuse. These animals show signs of withdrawal and even long-lasting effects that might resemble craving," he said.

Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, added: "The big question has been whether it's just a behavioral thing or is it a metabolic chemical thing, and evidence like this supports the idea that something chemical is going on."

A "sugar addiction" may even act as a "gateway" to later abuse of drugs such as alcohol, Hoebel said. The stages of addiction, as defined by the American Psychiatric Association, include bingeing, withdrawal and craving.

For the new research, rats were denied food for 12 hours a day, then were given access to food and sugar (25 percent glucose and 10 percent sucrose, similar to a soft drink) for 12 hours a day, for three to four weeks.

The bingeing released a surge of the neurotransmitter dopamine each time in the part of the brain involved in reward, the nucleus accumbens. "It's been known that drugs of abuse release or increase the levels of dopamine in that part of the brain," Hoebel said.

But it wasn't only the sugar that caused this effect, Hoebel explained -- it was the sugar combined with the alternating schedule of deprivation and largesse.

After three weeks, the rats showed signs of withdrawal similar to those seen when people stop smoking or drinking alcohol or using morphine.

The scientists next blocked the animals' brain endorphins and found withdrawal symptoms, anxiety, behavioral depression and a drop in dopamine levels. In other words, they confirmed a neurochemical link with the rats' behavior.

But longer periods of abstinence didn't "cure" the rats. Instead, there were long-lasting effects with the animals: They ingested more sugar than before, as if they were craving the substance and, without sugar, they drank more alcohol.

The researchers speculated that some of these brain changes may also occur in people with eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia, although more research needs to be done to confirm the effects in humans.

"Some say it's easy to lose weight -- you just have to shut your mouth, stop eating so much," Aronne said. "I tell them a good way to overcome global warming is if people made less carbon dioxide by breathing less.

Obviously, that's absurd. You can't do it because you feel uncomfortable."The same thing is true of eating," he added. "Fattening food has an impact on the regulating mechanism that breaks down your sense of fullness, makes you feel an urge to go back and get that blast of sugar and this creates the vicious cycle of weight gain that we're going through."

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100228625&gt1=31036

[jdog2050]

There's a german doctor who's been saying, for years, that sugar is not only addictive, but that refined sugar is a major cause of cancer and liver diseases.

[Starla]

I know I feel jittery before eating something sugary and feel much calmer afterward. It's usually something small like a cookie or a piece of candy and I have to have something sweet after every meal. Still, this is going to be used as a defense for obesity and those who can chomp down a whole box of cookies or a whole tub of ice cream in one sitting. That isn't addiction but just lack of self-control.

[Skippy]

Three points
1. Interesting
2. I am addicted myself
3. Wrong bloody forum - try the off topic forum.

This is starting to annoy me. Computer questions being asked in Job-Related forum instead of the Technology forum. People trying to sell something should be in the BUY/SELL forum. Those little job posts or that their school is looking for a teacher - should either post via Dave's Site (expensive) or try some of the free sites like craigs not on the forums. Korea is pouring money into EDUCATION fine post on the General discussion foruㅡ OR Obamais saying the the Korea Free tade alliance is unfair ok General Discussion. Obama is going the talk about bail out with the car industry put it in Current event.

Who agrees with me?

[Ultimo Hombre]

Did anyone really doubt that it was addictive?

[Draz]

I used to be addicted to sugar. I don't know how long term the "withdrawal" period is but it's long gone for me. I still like sugar, but don't crave it. (Except after big meals, I need something sweet. But a mini chocolate bar will do.)

[VanIslander]

sugar boosts dopamine levels? we all knew it's dope for kids

didn't you ever eat a spoonful of white sugar for the heck of it and then go play outside: wooo-hooo!

my dad and I easily went through a 2 kg bag of refined white sugar a month, in foods and drinks, in fact we often ran out and had to start a second bag!!!

that's 1+ kilograms of refined white sugar per person per month every month for nearly a quarter century no prob! he worked hard and I played sports: we burned the calories in no time. i grew up on sugar rushes.

then in college i dated a vegetarian and went a year and a half with no meat, then got some no-refined-sugar lifestyle going and found myself overloading on fruit and pasta/rice/potato (carbohydrates convert into sugar)

while i returned to meat in a big way, i went several more years on a 'avoid anything with added sugar' lifestyle choice but broke that when i picked up an old coca-cola habit, where? why here in Korea with samgypsal with koreans.

i haven't bought refined white sugar since 1997 but I do have brown sugar for hot porridge in my cupboards, but a one kg bag doesn't go in a month, it lasts nearly a year

and i do buy bakery sweets, like in my childhood days

i honestly think refined sugar you add yourself is NOT as fattening as high-carb, high oil/fatty foods

rat labs should concentrate more on what chemicals companies add as presrvatives and colorings than knock good ol' pure refined sugar, nothing added, lots taken out (refined)

long live sugar i may just go out and buy my first bag of white sugar in over a decade, i having a flashback worth indulging in (a bowl of hot tea with lots of white sugar added and then break up bread and put in for a yummy warm winter slurpy treat).

excuse me...

[PeteJB]

I thought this was common knowledge?

[Binch Lover]

No shit!

[el_magico]

Hell yeah it's addictive....

Has anyone successfully cutout sugar out of their diet? I had major withdrawals

[pkang0202]

Somedays I crave sugar like its crack. It can come in the form of a chocolate chip cookie, or glazed krispy kreme donut, or Cold Stone ice cream, or creamy cake.

I need something sweet. Now.

[jkelly80]

This reminds me of the study about binge drinking


http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29565