I’m no saint. As far as unhealthy diets, every senior I know has their vices. Sure, I don’t drink any alcohol, love veggies and am extremely active. But I indulge in sweets—in fact, it’s almost like an addiction.
I find myself pursuing pleasure in the form of candy, chocolate, ice cream, you name it. No pastries, but I’ve never met a candy I didn’t like. Sugar is my drug.
That said, many seniors I know try to be healthy through daily exercise and keeping a reasonable weight. But even with normal body weight, we can walk the razor’s edge when it comes to diet. There are many ways to contribute to poor health through food and drink.
Unhealthy Diets for Seniors
Some of us eat way too much. Others don’t eat enough, or not enough of the good stuff like vegetables and fruit. Some eat low fat, depriving themselves of a valuable macronutrient. Others follow diets that limit fats, protein, and/or carbohydrates, in pursuit of weight loss.
Practically all of us eat too much sugar because it is added to just about everything the processed food industry handles. Look at food package labels and you’ll find different names for it, from corn syrup to fructose to agave.
I hesitate to mention all the seniors I know who drink a lot of alcoholic beverages, because I don’t want to be judgmental, but the facts are clear about the risks to seniors, especially to senior brains.
Chances are if you’re accustomed to American convenience foods, you are consuming too many refined carbohydrates, sugars, and ingredients with processed chemicals that are either not beneficial or actively harming your health, damaging your metabolism, energy, and weight.
The Pursuit of Pleasure Through Food
Rumor has it that the large food companies actively formulate and process foods to trigger the pleasure centers in the human brain, so as to stimulate addictive responses in consumers. I know it sounds like some conspiracy plot for a Netflix series, but it may not be far from the truth.
Here’s what Dr. Gregor says in his book, How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease
The food industries bank their billions by manipulating the pleasure centers within your brain, the so-called dopamine reward system. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter the brain evolved to reward you for good behavior, helping to motivate your drive for things like food, water, and sex—all necessary for the perpetuation of our species.
So far, the idea of restricting junk food and highly sweetened products from the public (let alone our children) hasn’t been put forth as a strategy for solving the obesity epidemic. It probably never will be, as it would be an affront to our personal freedom and liberties.
But how free are we, if we are caught in an addiction? If our neurons are triggering a desire for unhealthy food and overriding our good common sense, are we really at liberty to choose? Ask any addict or recovering alcoholic about that.
The Magic of Dopamine
I’ve often wondered who named the neurotransmitter “dopamine” and why? Why are street drugs called “dope?” A connection? Which came first?
In any case, we all know its affect. It is also called the pleasure trap, when dopamine floods the reward centers of the brain. It is a shot to the brain that involves gratification yet triggers insatiable cravings for more —more sex, more booze, more food, more winning of whatever game we’re playing.
Give mice a choice between cocaine and sugar water and the sugar wins out. The food industry knows this very well. Like tobacco companies, and now e-cigarette manufacturers, the food producers come up with hundreds of new products that tap into the same dopamine reward systems that keeps people smoking and snorting dope.
When Pleasure Turns Into Pain
The problems seniors and others encounter with food are compounded when simple substances like sugar and all its forms are concentrated and packaged into high-density delivery systems. Few people binge on bananas, but they will on banana chips. You’re more likely to supersize fizzy sodas than gorge on sweet potatoes. Who would binge on corn? However, people over indulge in anything sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup.
It’s no wonder the over consumption of sugar sweetened packaged foods is compared to drug addition. While some of that has been speculation, we now have PET scans, imaging technology that allows doctors to measure brain activity in real time.
When dopamine is over-stimulated it ceases to respond. For example, obese people show decreased dopamine sensitivity. Thus it takes more of a substance to get the same amount of pleasure. In this study, the more an individual weighed, the less responsive to dopamine he or she appeared to be.
This is the very definition of addiction—it takes more and more of a substance to trigger a response. Addiction takes over—in spite of disastrous consequences—the addicted person keeps consuming more.
Unhealthy Diets: Addiction to Sugar and Fat
The brain responds similarly to fat. Dr. Greger explains it like this:
People who regularly eat ice cream (sugar and fat) have a deadened response in their brains when drinking a milkshake. A neuroimaging study found that frequent ice cream consumption “is related to a reduction in reward-region or pleasure center responsivity in humans, paralleling the tolerance observed in drug addiction.”
The same goes for obese people who overeat in an effort to achieve the degree of gratification previously experienced, only to find they eat more each time, which leads to unhealthy weight gain.
Normal Weight vs Unhealthy Eating
Yet a small percentage of overeaters and people addicted to sugar and fats manage to maintain what is considered normal weight or BMI ranges. But let’s be real. There’s no magic potion that allows us to eat our cake and sustain good health. Somewhere, somehow, corners are cut. It may not be in the weight department, but unhealthy eating leads to all sorts of metabolic and health syndromes.
The numbers show up eventually, usually on blood tests in the form of lowered insulin sensitivity and glucose intolerance. Prediabetes in on the rise in many seniors. At least that means it’s not too late to correct course with diet, exercise and perhaps a drug like Metformin.
Why wait until your doctor gives you bad news? You can switch to a healthy diet anytime, even three times a day. Ask yourself, do you really need the ice cream? (or whatever else it may be that comprises your version of an unhealthy diet.)
Now this doesn’t mean total restriction. But learning to restrict yourself is a good thing anyway. At least I think so. Even if it’s hard. Right now, I’m trying now to lower my salt intake. I like to put it on everything. Then I found out it’s a probable cause of stomach cancer…
And the sugar, well, I know that cancer cells in the body thrive on sugar. For now, however, all I can do is limit the amount of sugar I consume. I’m working on it. Honest. I find if I go off it for a while and give my dopamine receptors a rest, I can go back to indulging in small pieces of candy.
What about you? How do you pursue pleasure through diet?
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