diSCr.eat|diSCr.ipt|diSCr.eem

October 6th, 2005

On the Drug Tip:
My mom found a lump in her breast. I got an email from her this morning saying all the tests came back negative. So I called to talk to her about that and tell her I was happy for her. Then she called me out. She was like, “When are you going to tell me what’s going on with you.” So I was like, “Huh? What do you mean?” And she was like, “Whenever I ask you about how you’re feeling and what’s wrong, you’re kind of evasive.” And I was like, “Hmm, I’m not sure what to say about that.” So she backed off and said we didn’t have to talk about it. I said something about doing better, not wanting to worry her, did she really want to know, etc. And she said she got the feeling I was trying to protect her and since she didn’t know from what, she ran the gamut in her mind: hepatitus C, AIDS, tropical parasite, drugs. So I fessed up: “I was a drug addict, Mom.” She was cool about it. Said she’d been praying for me and that she was glad I had had the courage to pull myself out of that and to keep going. So I guess it was good. Honesty is good, and I wouldn’t want her to find out some other way, and it’s good to get it off my chest and not have to hide something or make excuses or lie, but she’s a worrier, of course, and I don’t want her to worry any more. She’s sensed, though, that I’m on the upswing so it shouldn’t be too bad, but, still, she doesn’t like me being naughty.

On the Food/Drug Tip:

Intelligence, sugar and the car-lot hustle headline WPA meeting
Psychologists discussed sugar addiction, intelligence and culture, and the psychology of used car sales–among other topics–at this year’s Western Psychological Association meeting.
BY LEA WINERMAN
Monitor Staff

West coast psychologists and psychology students gathered at the annual Western Psychological Association convention in Portland, Ore., April 14–17, to discuss topics as varied as how culture affects intelligence testing, whether sugar might be addictive and what psychologists can learn from used car salesmen. Highlights of the meeting included the following.
Sugar addiction
Bartley Hoebel, PhD, one of APA’s 2005 Distinguished Scientist Lecturers, presented his research on sugar addiction. Hoebel, a psychology professor at Princeton University, has shown that in rats, sugar can affect the brain in some of the same ways as drugs like cocaine and heroin–increasing levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine and decreasing levels of acetylcholine–and can cause some of the same chemical withdrawal symptoms as addictive drugs.
“Many people say anecdotally that sugar is addictive, but no one had done the research before this,” Hoebel said. Addiction, he explained, has three parts: bingeing and increasing intake of a substance over time; withdrawal when the substance is taken away or its effects are blocked; and craving, or a recurring and sometimes increasing urge for the substance during abstinence. Sugar, he says, can cause all three of these behaviors under appropriate conditions.
In one experiment, he and his colleagues made rats binge on sugar by withholding food for 12 hours each day and then providing unlimited rat chow and sugar water for the other 12 hours. They found that the rats increased the amount of sugar they took over the course of 10 days, and that they tended to take the most sugar in the first hour it was available.
After 10 days, the researchers gave the rats naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of opiates such as heroin and also the brain’s own opiate-like neurotransmitters. The rats showed some of the same withdrawal symptoms, such as teeth chattering and forepaw tremors, that mark withdrawal from an addictive drug. The naloxone-treated rats also showed decreased levels of dopamine and increased levels of acetylcholine in the brain–another sign of withdrawal.
In another experiment, Hoebel and his colleagues inserted tubes in the rats’ stomachs so that the rats could ingest the sugar water, but then have it drain out before being digested. The researchers found that even with this sham-feeding technique, sugar still raised the dopamine levels in the rats’ brains.

A Real Sugar High?

By: Angela Pirisi – Psychology Today
Sugar addiction is more than a trite expression people use to describe their sweet tooth. A pattern of fasting and overloading on sugary foods may foster dependence, according to a study published in Obesity Research. Summary: When does a sweet toothbecome a real addiction? People with a genetic predisposition for addiction can become overly dependent on sugar, particularly if they periodically stop eating and then binge,” warns Bart Hoebel, Ph.D., a psychologist at Princeton University who led the study. “Laboratory experiments with rats showed that signs of sugar dependence developed over the course of 10 days. This suggests that it does not take long before the starve-binge behavior catches up with animals, making them dependent.”
Earlier research found that this pattern sensitizes both dopamine and opioid receptors in rats. A cycle of deprivation and excessive sugar intake reinforces bingeing.
Abstinence also triggers withdrawal symptoms that resemble those of drug addiction, such as anxiety, chattering teeth and tremors. The taste of sugar makes the brain release natural opioids, and the bingeing causes dopamine release.
“There is something about this combination of heightened opioid and dopamine responses in the brain that leads to dependency,” explains Hoebel. “Without these neurotransmitters, the animal begins to feel anxious and wants to eat sweet food again.”
The rats exhibited behavioral changes even when sugar was replaced with the artificial sweetener saccharin. “It appears to be the sweetness, more than the calories, that fuels sugar dependence,” says Hoebel.
Although researchers still don’t understand how people can curb their sugar cravings, they do know that withdrawal symptoms and dips in dopamine levels aren’t evident when meals are moderate and regularly scheduled.

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