Can A Person Be "Addicted" To Carbs?

May 16, 2018

When you think of addiction, it's likely in relation to drugs or alcohol. You might believe that people couldn't be addicted to something seemingly benign like carbs, but science indicates otherwise. Indeed, even anecdotal evidence seems to point to the fact that eating carbs leads very quickly to eating more carbs.

Eating smaller portions of carbohydrate-laden foods doesn't sate your hunger for carbs but rather causes more significant cravings. Even the old adage that "eating Chinese food makes you hungry 2 hours later" plays into this carb addiction dilemma, but why?
 

While the conventional wisdom of the nutritional community is that fat makes you fat, and that overeating is the root of all obesity problems, a new breed of researcher begs to differ. Dr. David Ludwig, who studies obesity at Harvard, has found substantial indicators that it's our hormones that wreak the majority of the havoc on our bodies and cause weight gain. Specifically, we're talking about insulin, and this is exactly why carb addiction is very real.

Insulin spikes when we ingest sugar, which all carbohydrate breaks down into upon digestion.

When you eat simple carbs like candy, your insulin spikes, shuttling the little sugar molecules all over the body to where you need energy. If, however, insulin finds that your cells don't need energy, it triggers your fat cells to store the sugar as, well, fat. As your cells become more insulin resistant, like with type 2 diabetes, soon your cells are actively deprived of that energy when they need it. This is because the insulin becomes very good at immediately storing blood sugar as fat, which causes the cells to cry out for food, which makes you then eat more food.

This sugar cycle happens every time you eat something that is packed with carbs, which in turn helps you pack on the pounds. This is the first mechanism that causes carb addiction - insulin prevents your energy system from utilizing your food in a healthy way, which causes overeating, which in turn causes more poor energy utilization and weight gain.
 

So while insulin plays an energy-balance role in causing carb addiction, the other is evolutionary. Your brain is wired to see sugar as a reward, causing a dopamine spike when you eat it. This reward reinforces eating sugar, so you, in turn, crave it more and more. A combination of the pleasure of eating, combined with the dopamine released creates the other side of the addictive quality of carbs. Coupled with the insulin response, you end up with an addiction that is incredibly strong and can be as damaging as drug or alcohol addiction.
 

Dr. Ludwig suggests first reining in your triggers. By cutting processed and simple carbs like sugar, candy, white bread, and white rice out of your diet, you will help reset your body's insulin response to levels that are healthy. A carb restricted diet can also help weight loss, which will make your body use energy more efficiently, especially energy from carbs. Furthermore, by restricting carbohydrates, you will need to increase your protein and fat intake, and both protein and fat are far more sating than carbs. This means you'll eat less to feel full, which in turn will make weight loss easier.

Carb addiction is a combination of actual brain addiction to sugar, and your body's own hormonal response to over-consumption of carbs. It will require restricting your carb intake and re-evaluating your nutritional choices, but you can break that cycle and kick your carboholism for good.

Our content is created to the best of our knowledge, yet it is of general nature and cannot in any way substitute an individual consultation with your doctor. Your health is important to us! 

Would you be able to cut out carbs? Let us know in the comments!