The New York Times (9/21, Parker-Pope) “Well” blog notes that although previously rejected, the “notion that food can be addictive” is beginning to gain ground among experts. This spring, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “said that for some, obesity is ‘an addiction like smoking'”; and National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Nora Volkow, MD, “gave a lecture…making the case that food and drug addictions have much in common.” Additionally, researchers at Princeton University and the University of Florida “have found that sugar-binging rats show signs of opiate-like withdrawal when their sugar is taken away”; and scientists in Italy and California “reported that the digestive systems of rats on a fatty liquid diet began producing endocannabinoids, chemicals similar to those produced by marijuana use.”
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— “Craving an Ice-Cream Fix,”Tara Parker Pope, The New York Times, September 20, 2012.