Family history of alcoholism may turn some to find comfort in food
Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comCraving for alcohol linked to obesity
Seeded on Fri Dec 31, 2010 5:51 PM EST (msnbc.com)
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Alcoholics crave and are actually addicted to the sugar in the liquor. That's why you see reformed alcoholics hitting the deserts and sodas big time. Sugar is actually more addictive than alcohol as you can see by the number of overweight people that live on sodas and deserts. Ask your local Captain at the Salvation Army and the folks at AAA and they will point you in the right direction.
What about those who cannot have sugar? Most alcohol by volume has 100 calories. I am not allowed to have sugar...but I can drink. Too bad that is the only thing I can do to get rid of the c**p in my head and heart. I won't take the "drugs" the shrink offer me because they almost killed me.
In my case, I am not alcoholic but when I drink I get hungry and I have to eat and the most accessible food is fast food. I have tried eating lettuce after drinking but I crave for fatty foods.
When I don't drink I was able to loose 15 lbs in two months just by controlling what I ate and walk at least 1hr a day.
Behaviors such as overeating, smoking, alcohol consumption, and drug abuse share a similar trigger: inadequate specific neurotransmitters that control our reward and happiness centers.
People with these obsessive-compulsive behaviors also may be self-medicating anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, depression, or more serious mental conditions.
Inadequate brain chemicals such as serotonin, dopamine, etc. can run in families and be inherited. Therefore, these coping behaviors are also common among family members.
Weight loss programs, Alcoholics Anonymous, drug treatment, and smoking cessation programs may all work better for someone simultaneously under medical treatment by a physician. There are medications which can help balance brain chemicals as well as those which reduce cravings. Counseling can also be an important factor.
It isn't just a matter of willpower.
ttmadison: Agreed. Both are complex conditions, and we need every weapon in our arsenal to combat them. Public heath programs aimed at the general population are also vital. These form the basis of Finland's approach, and Finland is one of the few countries (I think Canada is the other) that have reversed the trend to obesity. One thing they have done is sponsor physical activity at the level of an entire community, and not just obese people.
I say "we" because obesity is a contributing factor to just about every chronic disease. In the end, it reduces productivity (asthma alone eats up over 14 million days a year), impacts all of our health costs and greatly, and lowers the overall health of the population. Reports are surfacing that new military recruits are in terrible physical condition.
And it's not a matter of will power: Obesity is a virtual plague on children. It must be treated as a condition and not a personal shortcoming.
Eat less, don't be obese. It IS a matter of willpower: the parent's will power.
Sounds like yet another study by the medical industry to support the medical industry.
They will probably be able to 'treat it', but will assure you that no cure is really possible, only years of very expensive therapy and behavior modification.
The study only lacks one little part, PROOF.
Maybe if you got your news from actual medical journals instead of relying on media news outlets to interpret them for you, you'd be more convinced. Try going to the source, instead of lazily clicking on whatever news outlet has the most eye-catching headline!
Great pun, be it intentional or accidental!
Hatchet wrote:
These approaches have had limited success, at best. The best solution lies in robust, coordinated public health programs at the federal, state, community, and school levels.
The CDC numbers are here: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html They aren't pretty.
Obviously you don't understand the basic concept of scientific method. Nothing can be proven. Hypotheses can be supported or rejected with evidence. Multiple studies may support a hypothesis such that it is validated so strongly and reliably that it becomes a well-accepted theory.
I have read Dr. Grucza's work and it is well done. There is a growing body of scientific literature that suggests that obesity, overeating, and addiction are all inter-related.
Thats strange, it's hard to keep anything down once you've ODed on the stuff, not to metion you forget to eat, and can't cook worth a darn either.
I was an awesome cook when I was drunk! The drunker, the better the food! Who else but a drunk could turn three packages of cajun shrimp Top Ramen and a box of Macaroni & Cheese into a gourmet meal?
Oof. I guess I just proved your point.
I think the gene that people blame for alcoholism is just an addiction gene. Be it drugs, alcohol or food(Over eating-under eating). If that gene even exists.
Well its only a matter of time until they find the link between obesety and world war or possibly obesety and the loss of salmon off the coast of Washington state. God help the skinny people when they find out they cause global warming.
Damn Skinny people
@Mike
Please look up the word logic and then never open your mouth again... People like you are detrimental to the collective intelligence of the human race.
Mike...thanks for my smile today...too funny.
inerttart... the word that is applicable here is sarcasm.
I completely agree with you on this. Between the government and the media it appears that everything that has happened down through history is the fault of the good looking full figured people. Well, that is not true for sure. I had rather have my family full figured people rather than the skinny micro people. At least they can hold their own in life better and also have a lot better outlook on and in life. Many of us are full figured due to genetics and not the amount of food we eat. We feel sick when we get too thin and look worse. Thin people have no soul anyhow. Blame the problems on the inch worm from now on that runs around on the ground and leave us good people who love being full figured alone--stop dictating to us obama and your partner. Live your own life and let us live ours. Besides who would want to turn sideways stick out their tounge and look like a zipper. Thin is ugly and unhealthy anyhow--been there done that and hated it. Who wants to look like skin wrapped around bone with no blood running through that body--ss obama forgot that is what you and your family look like. Now LEAVE THE FULL FIGURED PEOPLE ALONE.
That input is so ridiculous it doesn't even deserve a reply. But I have to reply anyway. "Thin people have no soul anyhow." Ignorant. I am thin and I can assure you I do have a soul. I don't have a problem with "full figured" people. My sister and my best friend are "full figured" people. You "good people" who love being full figured, have at it. Please don't tell me because I am thin I have no soul. How utterly absurd to condemn the President and his wife for wanting a healthy America.
I can assure you I do not look like a zipper when I turn sideways, even though I've never done that while sticking out my tongue. Good grief. "Thin is ugly and unhealthy anyhow"? Wow...I really don't even know what to say about that statement! Silly and uneducated blather. President Obama and his family look very healthy to me. Your whole post sounds very silly and uneducated. And now I'll leave you "full figured people alone."
By the way, I don't drink alcohol at all.
ROFL!
@ Mrs. Linda-Louise Gilbert: I'm not quite sure if "full-figured people" as you just labeled would appreciate you representing them in such a disgraceful way. Shame on you.
Obesity is linked to idiots who eat too much high-calorie food, period.
I hope this reseach is right but i believe that obesity in the United States is because in this country most people eat a lot walk to little and do not work enough, you can go all around the country and you can see families in the park seating and eating a lot you do not see so many people running or walking, the parks are becoming a place to eat and get fat.
Ideassoul
I agree. But there is another problem. I live in the Midwest which seems that walking as part of the daily routine is not encouraged.
Here we have unconnected sidewalks, bridges that are only pedestrian accessible at only one side and you need to cross a 4 lane road to get to that side and during winter there is no where to walk other than paid gyms or walk around and around like crazy inside a mall.
I think that it will help if cities are made pedestrian friendly.
The not walking sure doesn't help, but this article is about the increase in obesity in one decade. Were pople walking more in 2000? I don't think so.
I used to drink, now I over eat D'OH!
Frutose in everything. We are corn. Now they are forcing us to eat sea salt even though regular salt is plentiful.
Forcing? Who is "They"? You sound white, fat, poor and angry at socialism.
I think obseity is caused by people stuffing their mouths all the time, the rest of the research is BS. It is not a disease, just a sign of people getting to many foot stamps :) J/K
or maybe food stamps?
This article is BS..most drunks I know are skinny as hell!
Re-read the article, genius.
some of us are just beer & bones...
So is Obama and Michellebama planning on starting prohibition again?
This is Obama's fault!!! If Obama was not president there would not be any alcoholics or obesity!!! Impeach Obama now!!
I hope they ban fatty foods. So tired of gluttonous fat-asses uglying up this great nation.
BS. Beer has a lot of calories and people who drink excessive amounts of beer tend to get fat without question. There's a reason that its called a beer belly.
Yeah...if it were up to liberals, they would just execute them.
My dad was a beer alcholic. He was thin. He quit drinking and got a belly. He was malnourished and weak and got very sick. People who drink addictively drink so much, they don't have room for food. He lost weight when drinking. People will get a beer gut if eating normally and drinking a lot of beer.
I come from a long line of alchoholics. I crave carbs. I can see the point of this article.
Liberals are happy just sending gullible conservatives to go die in the M.E. so our Haliburton investments pay off!
Beer helps me get into the mindset of right wingers.
Most of these comments are rather blithe and condescending. But this has hit home for me....my mother was an alcoholic, and because I saw what it did to her, I drink very little booze.
But it is very hard for me to control my cravings for carbs and Coca-cola. I have battled with calorie intake and thus my weight all my adult life. I think someone who doesn't have this problem simply cannot understand that it is not a matter of simply saying no, as much as I wish it were.
You can't just tell a person who has depression to cheer up, that is a brain chemistry problem. I strongly suspect that desire for sweets and carbs is a similar situation. The lifestyle in the United States (driving everywhere) and the immediate and constant availability of unhealthy food compounds the problem.
Being someone that was obese and now relies on alcohol to relieve my stress. This is so true. I should be happily engaged......but I am not.
We are each responsible for our own health and behaviors. There may be contributing factors but we are each still responsible. We can make changes in our behavior and lifestyles.
I can only share my experience. I have been sober for 20 years. I got sober at 33. I weighed 220. I began running and working out. I qualified and ran the Boston Marathon. I continue to run, bike, workout. I'm 53, weigh 165. I teach school. I hike, bike, run and workout.
I still have daily things I need to overcome. Everyone does. That's just life. One interesting thing about this article. Alcohol breaks down into sugar. Thus those terrible hangovers. An overload of sugar. While drinking I never ate sweets.
After stopping I craved sugar. I ate piles of chocolate and sweets. Not good either. Eventually I broke myself from this too. We have to stop giving people excuses for their lifestyles. Those styles are choices. I knew I was an alcoholic long before I decided I'd had enough.
Each of us knows what we need to do to make changes in our lives. The most difficult thing to do is to make the decision to change it. Making that decision is half the battle.
If you'd like to read more on this go to www.chucksview.com and read "This Year Make Changes Not Resolution."
It depends on who's jeans your in.
In college we would eat fried pork chops and french fries with gravy before a big Kegger. Beer bongs were no problem after this prep work and we inhaled about 10 Krystal Burgers each on the way home in the wee hours. I went from a 29 waist to 36 in two years. Count all your calories, duh!
The college crowd still knows this, I hope this study was not funded with taxpayer money............................
This article is a bunch of crap, dont listen to it.
I'm bettin you are a glass half empty kinda guy.
Mike. Thanks for the laugh and for pointing out the not so subtle subtext to the article, that obese people are alcoholics through gene association, not that they've found the alcoholic gene.
Over weight has truly become the last acceptable prejudice. When will people learn to mind their own business and leave other people to their lives.
As a member of a family who has a long history going several generations back of alcoholism I have thought for some time that my problems with food and obesity are because of this addictive family trend. All of the women in the family struggle with obesity. We all avoid alcohol because of what we have seen in the past. All of the men in the family have sturggled with alcohol problems. I can eat 24/7 with most of the intake being foods that are bad for you. I have been accused of having no will power. No one who has not been thru this can understand the obsession and craving I have for sweets and certain foods. It is not the life I thought I would have. So seeing this article relating obesity to alcoholism in families does not surpise me in the least!!!!
You can't control the carbs and Coca Cola cravings? Stop buying them. It's different from telling a depressed person to "cheer up" - you can certainly control your actions. I get that it may be tough if it is staring you in the face, but honestly, just don't have them in your house. Buy apples.
You're welcome.
Then why are all the confirmed alcoholics I know of so skinny? Maybe because they don't eat but a little food and drink a lot of alcohol. You name an unhealthy of distasteful trait and I guarantee scientists will bend over backwards to link it to obesity.
I think the best thing to do is strive for moderation in all things. Excercise, diet, and drink. Prevention is still more desirable than a cure. Lifestyle choices can help us negate and reverse our genetics - although I won't say it isn't a struggle.
The title is misleading. What the article (and the study on which it is based) claim is that there is a likely connection between alcoholism in the family and obesity. In other words, the accepted genetic predisposition to alcoholism is also related to obesity, especially carb and sugar cravings. It makes sense that addictions run in families, and for many people, overeating is an addiction.
I have always felt that my sugar addiction was related to my father's alcoholism. When he would quit for short periods of time, he would eat lots of candy and other sweets. I also observed this in other recovering alcoholics. I am not making excuses for my overindulgence, but it does help me understand. I came to realize that my Dad probably said to himself everyday "this is the day I won't take a drink" but then did. I am the same way with sweets, so I just can't keep them in the house.