DIET ADDICTION COULD BE DRIVING U.S. OBESITY EPIDEMIC, RESEARCH SUGGESTS…

DIETING MAY BE ADDICTIVE, PACK ON POUNDS

By Sean Kenniff, MD

Healthapalooza.com

Americans spend roughly $47 million dollars each year on Twinkies, and another $32 billion on pizza. That’s a lot of dough. So it is hard to imagine the kind of food that outsells all those pizzas and Twinkies combined. According to food industry statistics, diet products do just that. Each year U.S. consumers spend more than $40 billion trying to shake off the pounds with diet shakes, pills, and programs.

But take a look around, and take a good look in the mirror. Diets don’t work well for anybody—they don’t even work for rich and famous celebrities. After losing 160 pounds in 2005, talk show queen Oprah Winfrey regained all of her weight by 2009. Actress Kirstie Alley famously lost 75 pounds by using the diet program Jenny Craig. She gained it all back within three years. Dodger ex-manager Tommy Lasorda slimmed down using Slim Fast, and so did NFL Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells. Both men saw weight loss victory quickly turn to defeat.

“While virtually all diets result in weight loss in the short term, 95-98 percent of people who go on a diet will gain the weight back,” says Judith Matz, co-author of The Diet Survivor’s Handbook: 60 Lessons in Eating, Acceptance and Self Care. “According to the research, two-thirds will end up heavier than their pre-diet weight.”

Matz says repeated phases of food deprivation, commonly called dieting, slows metabolism and makes our bodies store fat more efficiently. Recent evidence also suggests repeated dieting can alter brain chemistry in a similar fashion to drug or alcohol addiction.

“Diets give a high,” Matz says, “There is a virtuous feeling; you are on top of the world.”

So can you be addicted to dieting? And can a “diet addiction” be making you fatter?

The idea that a “diet addiction” could be driving our obesity epidemic is not a new one. Scientists have long known behaviors of yo-yo dieters—like food compulsions, obsessions, guilt, and shame, closely resemble the behaviors of relapsing addicts. What drives people to use drugs or alcohol in the first place, drives many others to extreme diets or eating disorders—genetics, emotional strain, mental illness, peer pressure and insecurity all playing important roles. Like alcoholics and drug addicts, dieters will often do destructive things to their bodies just to be thinner. Many abuse water pills, amphetamines, and laxatives to stay thin, or continue to smoke cigarettes out of fear that quitting will lead to weight gain. Still others resort to the dangerous bingeing and purging of bulimia.

But perhaps the most compelling evidence of diet addiction comes from experiments conducted by Dr. Pietro Cottone and Dr. Valentina Sabino at the Boston University School of Medicine. They studied the neurobiological responses of 155 rats. One group of rats was fed the standard, bland-tasting rat chow. Another group of rats was fed in diet cycles of standard rat chow for five days, followed by two days of a tasty, high sugar, chocolate flavored chow. The standard chow quickly became unacceptable to rats in the diet-cycled group, and they exhibited anxiety behaviors until they were able to get a fix of the chocolate chow. But when Dr. Cottone and Dr. Sabino examined the stress pathways in the brains of the rats, they found the “addictive” stress response was not caused by the tasty food, but rather by the deprivation phase. They found a key stress neurotransmitter, called CRF, was creating a negative emotional state nearly identical to that seen in animals withdrawing then bingeing on drugs or alcohol.

And it’s believed this same abnormal stress response could be one reason why so many people fail miserably on their diets, yet try and try again.

“CRF activation during abstinence from palatable foods induces a negative emotional state which is responsible for signs of anxiety and contributes to relapse to ‘forbidden foods,” Dr. Sabino said in a press release.

So how do you know if you are a diet addict?

ARE YOU A DIET ADDICT?

1.    Have you repeatedly tried and failed to control your weight with diets?

2.    Has dieting interfered with your life, social activities or employment?

3.    Do you have constant thoughts about dieting?

4.    Do you jump from diet to diet?

5.    Do you feel shame when you fail on your diet?

6.    Have you ever dieted dangerously?

If you answered yes to two or more of these questions you could be a diet addict.

But what about those people who are persistent and successful at dieting, like 65 year-old computer professional, Rose Lynn? She failed at Atkins, South Beach, and Weight Watchers, but recently lost fifty pounds on Nutra-System.

“I don’t believe the diets failed,” Lynn says, “I believe I failed to be ready and committed.”

Football Coach Jim Napoli lost forty pounds on the same diet program, after failing miserably on Atkins. “I lost weight, but I was mean as I’ve ever been, from the minute I woke up, until the minute I went to bed,” he says.

Funnyman and morning DJ Jeff Martin, who lost nearly thirty pounds on Quick Weight Loss, takes a more absurdist view on dieting, saying, “Try the garlic, limburger cheese, scallions, and red onion diet. From a distance, you will LOOK thinner.”

Will their success lead to long term weight loss? Matz says, slim chance—a two to five percent chance to be specific. Matz claims the secret to lifelong thinness is to break the diet addiction for good. Don’t avoid your favorite foods, because deprivation triggers overeating. Instead eat them in moderation. And honor your hunger. Hunger is your body’s natural way of telling you to eat. But be wary of emotional eating. If hunger is not your problem, then eating is not your answer.

Sean Kenniff, MD is a neurologist, television health journalist and radio host in South Florida.

To contact Judith Matz, or for more information about The Diet Survivor’s Handbook: 60 Lessons in Eating, Acceptance and Self Care, visit www.dietsurvivors.com or you can read her blog at www.dietsurvivorsgroup@blogspot.com

Dr. Pietro Cottone and Dr. Sabino Valentina can be reached by contacting the Boston University School of Medicine.

What is Worse? This or That?

What’s Worse, This or That?

by Sean Kenniff, MD 

What is worse: being obese or suffering from anorexia nervosa? 

Statistics show anorexia nervosa has the highest fatality rate of any psychological disorder. Up to twenty-percent of those affected will die from the condition if left untreated, and roughly three-percent die even with therapy. Obesity also kills, but much more slowly. The mortality rate for people suffering from anorexia nervosa is higher, and they tend to die at much younger ages when compared to an obese people of the same age. For an obese twenty-five-year old woman the risk of dying is around 0.1%.

What is worse for parents with children: Having a gun in the house, or a swimming pool in the backyard?

In the book Freakonomics by economist Steven Leavitt, statistical analysis reveals that having a swimming pool is roughly 100-times more risky than having a gun in the house. According to Leavitt there are 6-million residential swimming pools in the U.S., and more than 500 children drown in them each year-so roughly one child drowns for every 11,000 swimming pools. Meanwhile there are more than 200-million guns in the U.S., but fewer than 200 deaths in children under the age of ten are due to firearms. Simple math tells you that the risk of having a gun in the home is just 1-child death for every 1-million guns.

What is worse: smoking marijuana cigarettes, or smoking tobacco cigarettes?

This question appeared in an editorial in the British Medical Journal in 2003. From a legal point of view marijuana is certainly worse. But when it comes to your health tobacco cigarettes are a much bigger risk. Two large studies failed to find an increased risk of death associated with cannabis use. While there are plenty of carcinogens in marijuana smoke, people do not tend to chain-smoke the drug-so the overall exposure to those carcinogens is much less. And most marijuana smokers cease smoking the drug in early adulthood. Cigarettes pose a much larger personal and public health risk. However this conclusion comes with a caveat: perhaps the main reason people stop smoking marijuana after a certain age is because of its illegality. As we age we are less likely to commit these kinds of criminal activities. Decriminalization of marijuana may lead to more prolonged smoking and perhaps more deaths. But overall cigarettes are much worse. In the United States tobacco use contributes to roughly 1-in-5 deaths.

What is worse: being married and miserable, or happy and single? 

Research shows happily married couples live longer than singles, and the health benefit of being in a happy marriage is more profound for men than it is for women. People in positive marital relationships have lower blood pressures and reduced levels of stress hormones when compared to unhappily married couples. And a recent study from BYU researchers found unhappily married people have a higher blood pressure, and higher stress hormones than happy singles and happily married folks. So being unhappily married appears to pose the biggest risk to your health. But before you think about heading to divorce court, several studies have shown divorce can increase the risk of death. So try to make your marriage a happy one. 

It’s also important to mention that overall never-married people face the highest risk of death (unhappy and happy singles combined). A study published in 2006 found never-married people faced 5-times the risk of dying from infectious diseases, were 38-percent more likely to die from heart disease, and faced twice the risk of dying from an accident, homicide, or suicide.

What is worse: air pollution or being exposed to second-hand smoke?

Air pollution from industrial pollutants and motor vehicles accounts for 3% of all U.S. deaths according to an article in the European Respiratory Journal. A study from University of Southern California in 2007 found children living near a major highway (within 500 meters) were more likely to have asthma, other respiratory diseases, and were more likely to have reduced lung function and reduced lung growth. Living close to a busy highway has also been associated with an increased risk of heart disease and some cancers. Air pollution alone causes between 22,000 and 55,000 deaths each year in the U.S. according to government statistics, but the National Resources Defenses Council says air pollution is responsible for 64,000 deaths each year. Particulate matter and benzene are thought to be playing the largest role in causing the health problems. 20-million Americans live under air pollution that contains more than 32 toxins at levels 100 times higher than the EPA deems acceptable. The World Health Organization says worldwide there are 2-million deaths due to air pollution each year. So how does second-hand smoke compare? The American Cancer Society estimates exposure to second-hand smoke causes roughly 3400 lung cancer deaths and between 22,000 and 69,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease each year in the U.S. There are approximately 21-million American children (35%) living in homes where they are exposed to second-hand smoke. So the numbers turn out to be roughly the same.

Hangover a Highway Hazard

Are you driving with a ‘killer’ hangover?

By Sean Kenniff, MD 

  Most Americans are aware that drinking and driving is dangerous and often deadly. Alcohol is involved in roughly one-third of all U.S. traffic-related deaths; 36 people die each day and another 700 people are injured according to the CDC. But what happens the morning after a night of boozing? Recent studies suggest driving with a hangover is a hazard on the road. 

  The alcohol hangover is caused by a constellation of biological changes that occur during alcohol intoxication and its subsequent withdrawal. There is a rise in acetaldehyde in the bloodstream, along with hormonal fluctuations, dropping sugar levels, inflammation, dehydration, and abnormal cardiovascular activity. Under the influence of alcohol, sleep structure is also profoundly altered. All of this creates the typical hangover syndrome of headache, nausea, fatigue, muscle aches, thirst, shakiness, poor attention and difficulty with concentration. 

  But does a hangover impair driving? 

  Using a car simulator, scientists from Brunel University in the U.K. tested the driving performance of eleven students before and after a night of heavy drinking. They found, when hungover, the students drove an average of ten miles per hour faster without realizing even it, and their traffic violations doubled. They drove erratically; swerving in and out of lanes, driving through red lights and stop signs, and even hitting an occasional pedestrian. 

  We shouldn’t be complacent the morning after, and driving ‘after the influence’ with a hangover can also be very dangerous. Graham Johnston of RSA, a British insurer, said in a press release. 

  It’s important to note all of these hungover students passed a breathalyzer examination before driving in the simulator. 

  Several other studies have documented similar impairments in psychomotor abilities during the hangover period, and more research is being conducted to confirm the findings. Time is the only cure for a hangover, along with drinking plenty of fluids and eating nutritious meals. So remember the next time you have a killer hangover call a cab, or take mass transit.

Positively Poppy? Can Poppy Seeds Sway a Drug Test…

   People who are required to undergo random on-the-job drug testing often avoid poppy seeds because they fear they could lead to a positive drug test result. Though most poppy seeds sold commercially in the United States pose no risk during a routine drug test, some poppy seeds can contain trace amounts of opiates. If ingested your urine could test positive for drugs like morphine, codeine and heroin.

   Several studies have shown opiate levels in the urine rise within two hours of poppy seed ingestion, and can remain elevated for a day or two afterwards. If eaten with geat regularity the presence of opiates can be a bit higher and a bit more persistent. But since the levels found in poppy seed ingestion are generally lower than those found in drug use, many governmental groups and private corporations have simply increased the opiate level that is needed to be declared positive. This has eliminated a lot of the false positives due to poppy seeds.  

   Additionally the compound thebaine is found in the urine of people who have consumed poppy seeds but is not found in those who have been using opiate drugs. And more sophisticated drug testing techniques can now detect specific opiate drug byproducts.-Sean Kenniff, MD