The Cravings Challenge
B. McDermott: And I guess the challenge we have for depleting our liver’s glycogen supply is the cravings.
Cravings are what many can’t rise above. You know, the chemistry driven desire to continue eating is virtually impossible to overcome. It’s so powerful. Talk about addiction, right?
Can you expand on why food and in particular glucose and fructose rich food addiction is a real and valid challenge for individuals?
How Food Addiction Happens
Dr. G.Padda: Yeah. So I think there are a couple of elements of addiction that we should discuss.
Our food supply is tainted.
And it’s tainted in such a way that our large food manufacturers are manipulating the amount of fructose.
High fructose corn syrup is supposed to be 55% fructose, 45% glucose. That’s what high fructose corn syrup is.
But the food industry is manipulating the food supply so that it’s 60% fructose instead of 55% fructose.
You’re probably wondering why they’re spending extra money to increase the amount of fructose. Because normally these companies want to save money.
So why are they doing this?
Fructose Activates More Dopamine
Because glucose does not activate as much dopamine release as does fructose.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE WEIGHT LOSS SABOTEUR – DOPAMINE
Fructose kicks in the nucleus accumbens and dumps a bunch of dopamine.
So you end up with a tremendous surge of dopamine that makes you want to eat again and eat again and eat again.
So that’s issue one. Our food supply is tainted in such a way that the processed foods are hyper-addictive and that’s going to be a significant challenge.
How Loneliness And Lack Of Community Work Against Us
The second factor is that we have an epidemic of loneliness.
So researchers did an interesting rat study. We do rat studies all the time… and we just happen to be the rats in some cases.
But in this particular rat study they put the rats in a cage and offered them water, or cocaine plus water.
Well, each rat was alone. They found the water and drank that. It was okay.
But, when they found the cocaine-water they couldn’t stop drinking it.
They drank it to the point where they were unconscious.
They didn’t eat food. And eventually they died.
And so the natural conclusion from that was if you give an addictive substance to a rat, it’s going to consume that addictive substance to the point where it dies.
And so that was the initial conclusion.
Keep in mind, those rats could also be considered humans.
You give an addictive substance to a human, they’re going to eat it to the point where they die.
And on that basis, when we had people coming back from Vietnam, we knew that about 60% to 70% of them had been using heroin or some form of amphetamine or some form of opiate that was highly addicted.
We assumed that when these people came back from Vietnam, we would have zombies on the streets.
But that’s not what happened. Only 5% came back having an addiction.
What happened to the rest? Why weren’t they addicted?
Because in Vietnam they were addicted, but in the U.S. they weren’t addicted.
So they repeated the rat study. They gave the rats water or they gave the rats cocaine plus water.
But this time what they did was they put them in an enhanced environment. They were given the opportunity to play with other rats, to have sex with other rats, to have a maze and run around.
Low and behold, none of those rats died because they weren’t lonely.
They weren’t isolated.
They had other rats to play with.
The Power Of Community In Weight Loss Management
And so when I deal with weight loss management, my main thing is to generate a community for my people.
Whether that’s me interacting with their church groups and interacting in a way that allows them to communicate with each other and to co-share, we have to eliminate loneliness to treat addiction.
That’s how my addiction side becomes more and more relevant for me, it’s that we have to realize that a big part of addiction is loneliness. It’s not just the substance and it’s not just your genetics, it’s your interaction with society.
And we would think that we have all this cool tech that we have Facebook and we have Twitter, but that’s actually creating more loneliness because there’s not a true human interaction.
B. McDermott: Absolutely. You know that chemistry of ‘love’, right? How emotionally we experience the same neurotransmitters or feelings whether triggered by gossip, a chocolate chip cookie, or love.
There are emotional similarities between the three. Gossip meaning a good thing, being socially connected, in community, you know, it’s really powerful when you can whittle it all down.
What an excellent study to help us see it all so much more clearly.
You and I spoke a bit before this podcast about your work with the prison system. Do you want to segue into that?
