Trying to manage your weight? You may be addicted to carbohydrates diet and don’t know it. What’s worse is that you may not be able to do something about it without a drastic change in your diet.

People are constantly trying diets. Diets often need to be imposed into a general lifestyle to work. All those ads that claim people lost 30 pounds in two months usually don’t show what happened after six months. People are addicted to carbohydrates and now there is some evidence that proves it.
One of the hard lines in pursuing a dietary lifestyle is the realization that you need to cut carbohydrates from your food intake. Carbohydrates are found in sugars, starches, and grains. Bread, cereal, fruits, and vegetables contain carbohydrates. Milk and yogurt also have naturally occurring carbohydrates.

The Atkins diet is a good way to do short dieting. It eliminates virtually all carbs but you can eat all the fat and protein you like. Barring any cardiovascular issues, the Atkins diet proposed that if carbs are omitted from the diet completely, the body uses energy from fat and protein only. Weight loss is quick and swift. The problem is how long can you keep off carbs in today’s carb oriented society?

South Beach Diet went a little deeper and isolated carbs into groups of simplex and complex. Processed foods use many simplex carbs. You’ll find it in processed foods such as breads, cakes, cereals, white rice, and pasta.

Consuming highly processed carbohydrates can cause excess hunger and stimulate brain regions involved in reward and cravings, according to a Boston Children’s Hospital research team. These findings suggest that limiting these “high-glycemic index” foods could help obese individuals avoid overeating. The study was small but cited some evidence that our body’s systems of homeostasis work in many ways to keep us addicted to simplex carbohydrate foods.

The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition on June 26, 2013, investigates how food intake is regulated by dopamine-containing pleasure centers of the brain.

To examine the link, researchers measured blood glucose levels and hunger, while also using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to observe brain activity during the crucial four-hour period after a meal, which influences eating behavior at the next meal. Evaluating patients in this time frame is one novel aspect of this study, whereas previous studies have evaluated patients with an MRI soon after eating.

Twelve overweight or obese men consumed test meals designed as milkshakes with the same calories, taste and sweetness. The two milkshakes were essentially the same; the only difference was that one contained rapidly digesting (high-glycemic index) carbohydrates and the other slowly digesting (low-glycemic index) carbohydrates. High glycemic is indicative of simplex carbs and those rush into your body at a high rate of speed. Low glycemic are complex and absorb at much slower speeds, offering more sustained energy.

After participants consumed the high-glycemic index milkshake, they experienced an initial surge in blood sugar levels, followed by sharp crash four hours later.

This decrease in blood glucose was associated with excessive hunger and intense activation of the nucleus accumbens, a critical brain region involved in addictive behaviors.

Prior studies of food addiction have compared patient reactions to drastically different types of foods, such as high-calorie cheesecake versus boiled vegetables.

Another novel aspect of this study is how a specific dietary factor that is distinct from calories or sweetness could alter brain function and promote overeating.

These findings suggest that limiting high-glycemic index carbohydrates like white bread and potatoes could help obese individuals reduce cravings and control the urge to overeat.

Though the concept of food addiction remains provocative, the findings suggest that more interventional and observational studies be done. Additional research will hopefully inform clinicians about the subjective experience of food addiction, and how we can potentially treat these patients and regulate their weight.

The American Medical Association indicated that obesity should be treated as a disease. Studies like this one help validate that claim.

Is it nature or nurture? Most of the world has sustained themselves on carbohydrates and vegetable for thousands of years. For the most part, their lives were active. Today, we are mostly sedentary and are suffering from what we eat and our lack of movement. There may be genetic ties as to why some people are predisposed to being overweight.
With fast-foods dominating outdoor food consumption, it’s difficult to avoid high-glycemic foods. Succeeding in a weight management program may be a long, hard road that few will be able to tread.