Break Your Food Addictions (Part 1)

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> Break Your Food Addictions

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> Are you driven to eat certain foods? It could be an addiction.

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> If the number on your bathroom scale seems to be rising faster than the

> national debt, and if you repeatedly find yourself piling food onto your

> oversized plate in an almost reckless manner at all-you-can-eat buffet lines,

could

> you be captive of a " food addiction " ?

> Most people know that the physically addictive properties of caffeine can

> make giving up your first (and second and third) cup of coffee in the morning

a

> harrowing way to start the day. But some doctors believe that people are

> also driven to eat foods like beef and cheese with just as much compulsion,

and

> the reason may be an unrecognized food addiction.

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> Neal Barnard, MD, for example, says he believes that cheese, meat,

> chocolate, and sugar are addictive foods in the diets of millions of

Americans.

> Barnard, the author of Breaking the Food Seduction and president of the

Physicians

> Committee for Responsible Medicine, says that these foods contain chemical

> compounds that stimulate the brain's secretion of opiate-like, " feel-good "

> chemicals like dopamine, which drive our cravings for them.

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> Alan Goldhamer, DC, co-author of The Pleasure Trap and director of TrueNorth

> Health Center in Rohnert Park, Calif., agrees. " A large percentage of the

> population is vulnerable to the effects of this hyperstimulation [from foods

> that trigger dopamine production], and they get caught up in an addictive

> cycle, " he says. But unlike the addiction to drugs, which is widely

acknowledged,

> this problem remains largely unrecognized, according to proponents of the

> food addiction theory.

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