Is Sugar Addictive?

For years it has been debated if sugar is addictive or not.  Recently it has been shown to have the same reaction in the brain as COCAINE.

So is it or isn't it?

Jordan Gaines Lewis, a PhD candidate at Penn State College of Medicine is here to explain exactly what happens to the brain when a person STOPS eating sugar.

Addiction:

Sugar is such an ingrained part of our food that we hardly even realize it's there.  Most of us prefer sweet foods over sour and bitter foods.  This is because our mesolimbic pathway reinforces that sweet things provide a healthy source of carbohydrates.  And, this is because of EVOLUTION.

In neuroscience, food is called a "natural reward".  In order for our species to survive things like eating, having sex and nurturing others must be pleasurable to the brain so that these behaviors are reinforced and repeated.

Evolution has developed the mesolimbic pathway, this is a brain system that deciphers these natural rewards for us.  When we do something that is pleasurable, the ventral tegmental area uses dopamine, a neurotransmitter, to signal the nucleus accumbens.

What helps us to decide if we want another bite of chocolate cake is the connection between the nucleus accumbens and the prefrontal cortex.  The prefrontal cortex also activates hormones that implant the idea that the cake we are eating is really good and makes us remember that in the future.  And, here we go back to evolution, when our ancestors went looking for food sour tastes meant "not yet ripe", bitter meant "alert - poison!", and sweet meant "ok!".

However, modern diets have changed beyond recognition from the fruit gathering days.  With huge amounts of processed and prepared foods in our diets means it is almost impossible to escape added or "hidden" sugars.  Over a decade ago, it was estimated that the average American consumed 22 teaspoons of ADDED sugar per day, adding up to an extra 350 calories.

Not long ago, an expert estimated that the average Briton consumes 238 teaspoons of sugar each WEEK.

These added or hidden sugars have turned us all into unknowing addicts.

Drugs such as nicotine, cocaine and heroin hijack the brain's reward pathway and make users dependent on them, increasing neuro-chemical and behavioral evidence suggests that SUGAR is addictive in the SAME WAY.

There are 4 major components of addiction: bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization (the notion that one addictive substance predisposes someone to becoming addicted to another).

All of these components have been observed in rats tested in laboratories for sugar as well as drug abuse.

A typical experiment works like this:  rats are deprived of food for 12 hours every day, they are then given 12 hours of access to a sugary solution and regular chow.  After a month of following this daily routine, rats displayed behaviors similar to those on drugs of abuse.  They'll binge on the sugary solution in a short period of time, much more than their regular food.  They also show signs of anxiety and depression during the food deprivation period.

Also, many sugar-treated rats who are later exposed to drugs such as cocaine and opiates, demonstrate dependent behaviors towards the drugs compared to rats who did not consume sugar previously.

Like drugs, sugar spikes dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens, the part of the brain that controls feelings of reward.

In the long term, regular consumption of sugar changes the gene expression and availability of the dopamine receptors in the brain.  Specifically, sugar increases the concentration of a type of receptor called D1, but decreases another receptor type called D2.  Regular sugar consumption also inhibits the dopamine transporter action, this is a protein which pumps dopamine out of the synapse and back into the neuron after firing.

All this means that over time, repeated access to sugar leads to prolonged dopamine signaling, greater stimulation of the brain's reward pathways and a need for even more sugar to activate all of the dopamine receptors.

In short, the brain becomes tolerant to sugar - and more is needed to attain the same "sugar high".

Withdrawal:

Some people give up sugar for short periods of time, say for lent.  A fellow graduate student who did this told Lewis that the cravings never disappeared but they did get easier to deal with after a week or so.

A 2002 study by Carlo Colantuoni and Colleagues at Princeton University - rats  who had undergone a typical sugar dependence protocol then underwent "sugar withdrawal".

They managed this by either food deprivation or treatment with naloxone, a drug used for treating opiate addiction which binds receptors in the brain's reward system and stops the craving for drugs.  Both methods for withdrawal produced the same physical problems including teeth chattering, paw tremors, and head shaking.  The rats treated with naloxone also appeared more anxious, as they spent less time on an elevated apparatus that lacked walls on either side.  Rats in sugar withdrawal also showed to be more passive in the forced swim test, preferring to float than to actively try to escape when placed in water, suggesting feelings of helplessness.

Obviously, these experiments in rats are fairly extreme, but they give us an insight into the neuro-chemical underpinnings of sugar dependence, withdrawal and behavior.

We humans have spent decades debating the existence of "sugar addiction".  There are accounts of people going through "sugar withdrawal" describing food cravings, which can trigger relapse and impulsive eating.  However, there are also countless articles and books about the boundless energy and new found happiness in those who have given up sugar for good.

So what will you choose?  Be a slave to the sugar industry, a drug addict?  Or, will you suffer withdrawal in the hope of a healthier, happier life?

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

What a curry can do for you.

Turmeric (an ingredient in curry) has 100s of potential benefits, it positively modulates over 160 different in the mammalian body:

• Destroying multidrug resistant cancer
• Destroying cancer stem cells (arguably, the root of all cancer)
• Protecting against radiation-induced damage
• Reducing unhealthy levels of inflammation
• Protecting against heavy metal toxicity
• Preventing and reversing Alzheimer's Disease associated pathologies

Turmeric is the spice that gives curry it's yellow color.  It also contains bio active compounds with powerful medicinal properties.

It has been used for thousands of years in India as a spice and as a medicinal herb.

The compounds with medicinal properties found in Turmeric are called curcuminoids - the most important of which is curcumin.

1.  The main active ingredient in turmeric is curcumin and it is known to have powerful anti-inflammatory effects and is a strong antioxidant.  However, the content of curcumin in turmeric is very low - about 3% by weight.  Getting enough curcumin in your diet as a health supplement is very difficult as it is also poorly absorbed into the bloodstream.

Piperina, found in black pepper, enhances the absorption of curcumin by 2000%, so add black pepper to anything you prepare with turmeric or curcumin.  Some people swallow a few peppercorns with their curcumin supplements!

2.  The fight against inflammation.  Inflammation is important, it helps the body fight foreign invaders and also plays a part in repairing damage.  Without inflammation, pathogens such as bacteria could easily take over our bodies and kill us.

However, where as acute (short-term) inflammation is beneficial, Chronic (long-term) inflammation can become a major problem when inappropriately deployed agains the body's own tissues.

We now know that Chronic, low-level inflammation plays a major part in almost every chronic western disease.  This includes heart disease, cancer, metabolic syndrome, Alzheimer's and various degenerative conditions.

As I have mentioned before, curcumin is a strong anti-inflammatory, in fact it is so powerful that it matches the effectiveness of some anti-inflammatory drugs.

3.  Turmeric dramatically increases the antioxidant capacity of the body.  One of the mechanisms believed to be behind aging and many other diseases is oxidative damage.  Involving free radicals, highly reactive molecules with unpaired electrons.

Antioxidants protect our bodies from free radicals - free radicals tend to react with important organic substances, such as fatty acids, proteins or DNA.

Curcumin is a potent antioxidant that has the power to neutralize free radicals due to its chemical structure.  There is also the added benefit that curcumin also boosts the body's own antioxidant enzyme activity.

4.  Curcumin linked to improved brain function and a lower risk of brain disease.  Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), is a type of growth hormone that functions in the brain and drives the multiplication and increase of neurons.

Many common brain disorders such as Alzheimer's, have been linked to decreased levels of this hormone.  However, curcumin has been found to increase levels of BDNF.

Therefore, curcumin may be effective at delaying or even reversing many brain diseases and age-related decreases in brain function.  Curcumin could also improve memory and make you smarter!

5.  Curcumin lowers your risk of heart disease.  Heart disease is a very complicated illness.  Where curcumin can benefit heart disease is by improving endothelial function - this is the lining of the blood vessels.

Endothelial DYSFUNCTION is a major driver of heart disease, involving the endothelium's inability to regulate blood pressure, blood clotting, etc..

There have been several studies that suggest that curcumin can improve endothelial function, with one such study showing that curcumin works as well as Atorvastatin.

And, if you remember the anti-inflammatory + antioxidant properties of curcumin from point 2, you'll understand how important these are for heart disease.

6.  Turmeric can help PREVENT cancer.

A study carried out with 44 male participants - all of whom had lesions in the colon that sometimes turn cancerous, showed that supplementing these men with 4g of curcumin/day for 30 days reduced the number of lesions by 40%.  It is thought that curcumin may help prevent certain cancers from happening, especially cancers of the digestive system such as colorectal cancer as mentioned here.

Curcumin has also been found to help in the TREATMENT of cancer.  There are many different forms of cancer, but they all have certain things in common - all of which seem to be affected by curcumin supplementation.

Studies have shown that curcumin supplementation can reduce angiogenesis which is the growth of new blood vessels in tumors, metastasis - the spread of cancer, as well as contributing to the death of cancerous cells.

7.  Curcumin and the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's Disease.

Curcumin has been shown to cross the blood-brain barrier and has shown to lead improvements in the pathological process of Alzheimer's Disease.

We know that inflammation and oxidative damage play a part in Alzheimer's Disease and we also know that curcumin has a beneficial effect on both of these pathologies.  But, it doesn't stop there.  One key aspect of Alzheimer's is an accumulation of protein tangles called Amyloid plaques.  Curcumin has been shown to help clear these plaque accumulations.

8.  Curcumin helping Arthritis sufferers.  Back to the inflammation point again.  Arthritis is a common disorder caused by joint inflammation.  Many studies have shown that curcumin can help treat symptoms of arthritis and in some cases is actually more effective than anti-inflammatory drugs.

9.  Curcumin as an anti-depressant.  A small study was carried out on 60 patients being treated for depression.  They were separated into 3 groups:

Group 1 was given Prozac
Group 2 was given 1g curcumin
Group 3 was given Prozac + 1g curcumin

After 6 weeks, the curcumin only group had shown similar improvements to the Prozac only group and the group that took both showed the best improvement.

10.  Now add all this together...

Curcumin can help prevent:

• Heart Disease
• Cancer
• Alzheimer's Disease
• Inflammation
• Oxidation

So basically curcumin is the perfect anti-aging supplement.  So, get curry on the menu on a regular basis - it will do you the world of good!

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

The acceptance of obesity

I spent last week in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  I was there to support my husband at his annual event Campus Party.  So, it was actually a bit of a holiday for me as I had no obligations, at least work wise!

However, I was shocked and deeply saddened on my first morning there.  A coach had been organized to shuttle Campus Party employees from their hotels to the event centre where Campus was being held.  Having arrived late the night before my husband and I had an early breakfast and made our way out to the bus at 7am.

You are probably all familiar with the signs you find on all forms of public transport, they tend to all be similar, like this one reminding us that the first row of seats is priority seating for the elderly, disabled, pregnant women or women with small children.

Well, the one I was confronted with on my first morning in Sao Paulo was this one:

Yes, "we" are now including the obese as eligible for priority seating.  I totally get it and of course we must make daily life easier for them, but at the same time it truly saddens me that obesity has become something normal and accepted.

The reason why this upsets me is not because I don't like looking at overweight people... it's not that at all, my entire career is dedicated to helping people with weight problems and trying to prevent future health problems in people who are an ideal weight, overweight, obese and even underweight.

The reason why this upsets me is because obesity is now something that is accepted.  Obesity should not be accepted, it should not become the new NORMAL for one simple fact:  obesity kills.

We won't solve the obesity problem simply by including these people in a category.  We have to HELP them solve their problem, we have to HELP them improve their health.

Being obese can lead to a whole host of life threatening illnesses such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.  It also contributes to bone fractures, amputations (because of type 2 diabetes), breathing difficulties, mobility problems, difficulties when operations need to be performed for more serious health issues, not to mention the loss of quality of life.

I have read so many times of women turning their lives around and going from obese to a healthy

weight with lots of hard work for one simple reason... LIFE:

"I realized I was going to die, and I didn't want to leave my children without a mother."
"I wanted to be able to do things with my kids like play in the park."

Or a father who after losing his wife to cancer realized if he didn't lose weight he would probably die and his children would be orphans.

Or the women and men who got stuck in swings or theme park attractions.

Or the embarrassing moment when someone has to ask for a seatbelt extension on a plane - or worse still have to pay for two seats instead of just one.

Or the woman who saw a photo of herself at her son's wedding and cried as she "hadn't realized how fat I'd got!"

Child obesity is on the rise, today's younger generation are going to be the first to die before their parents because of weight related issues.

Finding you can't do what you want to do because of your weight is what mainly gets people to do something about their condition.

So please, love yourselves and your families and look after yourselves and your loved ones.  Learn how to be healthy and how to eat healthily and teach it to those you love.  Stop obesity in it's tracks and start you and your family on the path to health and wellness.

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

High Fat - Low Carb

For decades we have been told that high carb - low fat dietas are the way to eat correctly AND lose weight.  However for decades, patients who have been advised to dieta that way (NOT by me), have complained that the diet wasn't working for them.  The doctors' usual thought process was - "Well you must be doing something wrong."

I have been going on about this for years and have written many posts on how high carb diets do not work and how fat is NOT DANGEROUS.

So, here's another one!

One of the major health problems of our time is insulin resistance.  A whopping two thirds of the population in the UK is insulin resistant.  Insulin resistance is strongly linked to type 2 diabetes and obesity.

The reason why this is all connected is very simple:

When a person eats carbs they are broken down by the body into glucose.  Glucose is used for energy, but in order for the body to use glucose for energy, the glucose has to pass from the blood into the cells and in order to do that insulin must be secreted by the pancreas.

Insulin could be compared to a key - it fits perfectly into the cell wall allowing the glucose to access the cells, and therefore produce energy.  However, if a person is insulin resistant then the key doesn't fit properly.  Therefore the pancreas has to produce extra insulin.  The problem is that insulin is actually a weight-promoting hormone that increases fat storage.  So, if a person is insulin resistant then it makes sense that they will have difficulties losing weight if their pancreas is having to over produce insulin.

This is where high fat diets come into the picture.

Fat, especially saturated fats, have had a lot of bad press for decades.  According to most dietary advice, you should steer clear of foods high in fats - especially saturated ones, or you will die from heart disease.

One thing they don't tell you is that fat is actually essential to the body.  There are even vitamins that can only be absorbed by the body in the presence of fat.

A small study was carried out recently in the UK by Dr. Trudi Deakin, Dietitian:

Roughly 80 patients were given the choice of attending two educational sessions on diets, one on a Wednesday, and the other on a Friday.

The volunteers who attended the Wednesday session were taught high fat - low carb approach to dieting.

The group that attended the Friday session were given the standard talk about high carb - low fat diet options.

The groups were then weighed when they attended the talks and then again after 6 weeks of dieting.  According to Dr. Deakin, the results were emphatic:

The Wednesday group had reduced their carb intake from 48% of their daily calories to 14%.  As a result they had increased their fat intake from 32% to 59% of their daily calories.

After 6 weeks they had lost an average of 2.8kg and their average waist circumference had dropped by 3.1cm.

In comparison, the Friday group on the standard dietary advice (high carb - low fat) had lost an average of 1.6kg and only 1.3cm from their waists.

However, it gets even better!  After 2 months, the Wednesday group (high fat - low carb) had lost an average of 5kg and dropped 9.5cm from their waists.

Meanwhile, the Friday group (high carb - low fat) only lost 1kg and 0.1cm from their waists.

Eating a high carb diet leads to cravings and feeling hungry more often, which makes dieting a lot harder to control.

"There is not a single piece of clinical evidence that demonstrates saturated fat increases a person's risk of heart disease or stroke," Dr. Deakin said,

"The traditional view point is that saturated fat increases LDL levels (bad cholesterol).  But actually research has shown it is actually excess consumption of carbohydrate that increases bad cholesterol.

"When you eat carbohydrates it is initially used for energy, then any excess is stored as glycogen in the muscle and liver.

"But the rest is converted into fat which sits around your internal organs."

An example of healthy fats are nuts, avocados, olive oil, coconut oil, oily fish, meat, etc...

A high fat - low carb diet can be delicious, just make sure it is also packed full of healthy vegetables!

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com