Dr. Simon Thornley concluded that the "sugar rush" some people get after eating sweets, breads, sugary sodas, syrups, and other simple carbohydrates stimulates the same area of the brain as nicotine and other drugs do. Binge carbohydrate eaters experience a loss of control, need to eat more carbs to get the same effect, and then experience withdrawal symptoms and depression when they try to quit eating them. This is similar to the pattern of other addictions.
Dr. Thornley believes that governments should restrict advertisements for highly refined foods, levy taxes on them, and put warning labels on their packages.
Dr. Thornley's controversial theory appeared in Medical Hypotheses.
Labels: addiction, brain_chemistry, food
Posted By: Aspen Education Group