Addicted to French Fries: Is Food a Drug?
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According to the American Heart Association, about one in three kids and teens in the United States is overweight or obese. Obesity can lead to chronic health problems like heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Obesity can even shorten your life.
You probably already heard this in the news. But, did you know that a diet high in saturated fats, refined sugars, corn syrup, and carbohydrates literally tricks our brains into craving more unhealthy stuff?
Brains React to Food
Most people don’t just consume food for “fuel” or energy. Most of us enjoy eating, especially our favorite foods. Science backs this up: Consuming tasty foods can satisfy the natural brain reward system, releasing the chemical dopamine in the brain to add to overall feelings of contentment and satisfaction. This is good for our survival since we have to eat to survive.
Overeating is different, but is also based in the brain. Scientists now understand that, for a growing number of people, certain foods trick the brain into wanting more. Pizza, French fries, chocolate, and colas are high on the list of foods that trigger dopamine.
In this way, food causes reactions in the brain similar to those caused by some drugs, like cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana, which also affect dopamine levels and lead to compulsive drug seeking and use.
According to NIDA Director Dr. Nora D. Volkow, “We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain.”
Steps You Can Take
It’s important to balance your diet with healthy choices and right-sized portions to ensure you get all the nutrition you need to be healthy.
Here are a few tips from Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Campaign:
- Try new fruits and veggies. Add variety to your meals to make eating healthier, fun, and interesting.
- Drink smart. Skip soda and other drinks flavored with sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. Choose water—make it more exciting by adding a splash of lemon or a few mint leaves.
- Move every day. Walk or bike to your destination. Turn off the TV and go outside.
Now you tell us: What do you do to eat well, keep fit, and stay healthy?
Meet Dr. Nora Volkow, Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse
First, a quiz. What doesn’t belong in this list?
a) World History
b) Running
c) Dark Chocolate
d) Brain Science
Dr. Nora Volkow is a Mexican-born psychiatrist who fell in love with the brain very early in her scientific career, thanks to an article she read as a medical student in Mexico about a new brain technology, Positron Emission Tomography—or PET scans. With PET scans, scientists were able to peer into people’s brains to map what kind of connections are inside a living, breathing human being, and to see where certain behaviors were linked to that map. It was more than just looking at a photograph of the brain, it was looking at snapshots of emotions, desires, and thoughts, and it set her on a path towards understanding the triggers in the brain that lead to abuse—or addiction—to everything from prescription drugs to chocolate to the computer game Tetris.
What could such different things possibly have in common? According to an interview in the New York Times, Dr. Volkow has a one-word response: dopamine. The surge of this hormone through the body stimulates the brain’s pleasure and reward system, tricking the brain into wanting more. This feeling of getting “high” makes it harder for some people to experience the normal pleasures in life—including friends, family, and healthy activities.
Dr. Volkow’s scientific career includes not only directing the National Institute on Drug Abuse at NIH, but also conducting brain research at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. In case you’re curious about how a researcher can also run a government institute, as Dr. Volkow says, “Science and politics are intertwined.”
So have you figured out the answer to our quiz: What doesn’t belong in this list?
Aha, a trick question! The correct answer is they all belong—a, b, c, and d are all things that can describe Dr. Nora Volkow.
a) Her great-grandfather was Leon Trotsky, one of the architects of the Russian Revolution who went into exile in Mexico City.
b) Running is the activity that Dr. Volkow indulges in that produces the “runners high” caused by an exercise-induced dopamine reward in the brain.
c) Chocolate, for Dr. Volkow, is its own reward.
d) Brain science is what she loves even more than chocolate.
In fact, neuroscience (the science of the brain) is emerging as the key to creating treatments to counteract the drug-induced brain changes that can lead to addiction, a belief held by many policy experts and researchers like Dr. Volkow.
Word of the Day: Brain Reward System
A reward is a great way to encourage someone to do something. For example, if you offer a $300 reward to find your lost dog, people may be more likely to look for and return him or her. Or, if your parents offer to reward you for keeping your room clean or getting good grades, you have an incentive to do it.
Our brain has its own reward system. When we do certain things, the brain rewards us by making us feel good. The brain reward system is a brain circuit that causes feelings of pleasure when it is “turned on” by something we enjoy (see figure), like eating good food or being in love.
Whenever this reward circuit is activated, our brains note that something important is happening that is worth remembering and repeating.
Drugs activate the brain reward system in a similar manner. However, most drugs set off a surge of the brain chemical dopamine and therefore produce a much stronger and longer-lasting “artificial” pleasure sensation than natural highs. The effect of such a powerful reward strongly motivates people to take drugs again and again, even when they no longer really want to.
That can happen because drugs can actually reprogram the brain, so that every time a person takes the drug, the effect is a little weaker, and so they have to take more and more of it to get the same feeling. Eventually, a person can become addicted to the drug and compulsively use it, not so much to feel good but to keep from feeling bad. That’s the “sneaky” part of addiction.
NIDA provides lots of information about the how drug abuse targets the brain’s pleasure center:
Word of the Day: Euphoria
Image Courtesy of Nicholas Noyes
Euphoria: A feeling of well-being or elation.
Euphoria is that excitement you get from getting a perfect score on a test, or attention from someone you have a crush on. It can come from a roller coaster ride or as the rush from a physical activity like downhill skiing, especially the first time. These feelings of euphoria are all healthy and natural.
What’s not healthy or natural is taking drugs to feel “euphoric.” Drugs of abuse artificially produce euphoria by manipulating your brain chemistry to make it seem that something exciting is happening. To get this feeling again, you may choose to use the drugs again-and again. And that can lead to craving and addiction.
Over time, the brain needs more of the drug to get the same feelings of pleasure. Why? The drug causes surges, like waves, of the brain chemical dopamine, which initially produce the euphoria. After repeated hits, though, the brain adjusts to this higher level of dopamine by making less of it and by reducing the number of receptors that can receive and transmit the signals it sends. Pretty soon, the drug abuser is taking the drug just to bring the dopamine functions back up to normal and to avoid the horrible craving that compels them to seek and use drugs even when their lives and health are falling apart. That is really the essence of addiction.
But the good news is that natural, healthy experiences of euphoria don’t wreck the brain’s chemistry. So think about what you do in life that makes you feel good. Spending time with friends, playing with your dog, doing sports, seeing a good movie? Any of these activities can create a natural euphoria by triggering the brain’s reward system the way it was meant to work.
So don’t let drugs fool your brain, and then wreck it.
Real Life: The Choices We Make
Image Courtesy of Garland Cannon
A lot of celebrities are making headlines lately for all the wrong reasons. First we hear about tennis star Andre Agassi admitting to meth (a toxic stimulant drug) use when he was on the tennis circuit (what was he thinking?) and now Tiger Woods, with everyone speculating about his personal problems. All of this news has made SBB think a lot about how we make choices in our lives. Why do intelligent, successful people make bad choices when they have so much to lose?-even (and maybe especially) superstars?
We look at this question of personal choices and self control a lot at NIDA while we study drug abuse. Initially, taking drugs is a choice. Over time, drug abuse can become a disease we call addiction. But what makes us risk the consequences of making the choice to try drugs? Not everyone becomes addicted to them, but many do, so why do people risk it?
To find answers, scientists are studying the brain chemical called dopamine. Dopamine gives us a feeling of euphoria, a physical surge of pleasure in response to things we enjoy, which are different for different people. From healthy pleasures, like eating a good meal or scoring a goal, to unhealthy ones, like doing drugs or stealing from stores. Once you become addicted to that rush of dopamine it is hard to stop the behavior. And, once you become addicted it is hard to feel pleasure from the simple things in life-like a great piece of music, holding hands with someone you really like, spending a fun day with the family, or having a laugh with friends.
So how do we avoid making bad choices in the first place? SBB suggests focusing on the genuine pleasures in your life. Fill your day with them. Go shopping with your sister, watch a game with friends, join a club at school, see a movie, read a great book… Protect the simple pleasures in your life–and when it comes to drugs, maybe think about what you might lose.
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National Institute on Drug Abuse | National Institutes of Health | U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
