story it’s about a woman named Barbara
now unfortunately for Barbara when she
was young unhealthy habits were modeled
at home and several of her close
relatives struggled with a very specific
type of disorder as Barbara got older
she realized that exposure to a certain
type of substance was highly rewarding
for her and she began actively seeking
it out and consuming it without
experiencing really any negative
consequences over time though Barbara
began to experience the negative health
effects associated with taking the
substance for a long period of time
she had intense cravings she began to
struggle with depression and even though
she had tried to reduce her intake
several times she had been unsuccessful
each time now I’m sure you all have an
idea of what it is that Barbara is
struggling with and if you had guessed
addiction then you would be correct
Barbara’s not alone in this one in five
Canadians will meet the criteria for
substance use disorder at some point in
their lifetime I want you to think about
this I want you to look to the two
people on your right-hand side and then
the two people on your left-hand side
statistically speaking this means that
one of you will meet the criteria for
substance use disorder at some point in
your lifetime four in ten Canadians will
meet their criteria for addiction to
tobacco products – and ten Canadians
will meet the criteria for addiction to
alcohol and six and one-hundred about
six percent of the population will meet
the criteria for addiction to cannabis
and other illicit substances the social
cost of this according to a 2006 study
was approximately thirty nine point
eight billion
each year this means that it costs just
over $1,200
to every man woman in child in Canada
and this includes both direct costs like
the cost of health care and law
enforcement and indirect costs like lost
productivity at work now Barbara’s
specific addiction will cost Canadians
approximately four point five billion
dollars each year now some of you may
have an idea of what the substance
barbara is addicted to is some of you
might be guessing tobacco some of you
might be thinking alcohol some of you
might be thinking something a little
harder like cocaine or heroin in
actuality Barbara isn’t addicted to any
of these substances Barbara is addicted
to food now some of you might be
surprised by that statement and some of
you might not disagree or what may
disagree with that statement and in fact
the controversy surrounding food
addiction has been waging for the better
part of the past ten years on two fronts
the first is what I like to call the
social media war on one side you have
individuals that claim to suffer from
food addiction and provide anecdotal
evidence of their own experiences and
the experiences of the people that they
know and on the other side is you have
individuals that claim that the words
food addiction are simply a cover an
excuse for developing obesity or for
having low self-control the other front
on which this controversy is waged is in
the scientific 110 years ago health
scientists started saying look we’ve got
people coming to us and they are showing
hallmark features of addiction they are
showing tolerance they’re showing
withdrawal they’re showing impulse
control issues and on the other side you
had individuals that studied the sort of
classic drugs of abuse like cocaine and
like heroin who said that food could not
be classified in the same way as those
drugs and that the neurobiological
things that
often when someone becomes addicted
aren’t present in individuals that claim
to suffer from food addiction now this
is where I came in this is when I began
to be interested in research and I had
been exposed to this controversy in
social media and I’ve been exposed to it
in the scientific field and I was really
interested so when I started my research
I started with a very simple question
and that question was can their
rewarding properties of food produce
addiction now one of the hallmark
features of addiction is compulsion and
if you look at the definition of
compulsion in the dictionary it is the
irresistible urge to behave in a way
that runs contrary to your Express
conscious wishes in addiction we see
this present as individuals that are
unable to stop themselves from consuming
a substance even if they no longer wish
to and even if they no longer derive any
enjoyment from doing so so I went back
to my original question can the
rewarding properties of food produce
addiction and I modified it to can the
rewarding properties of food produce
compulsion this hallmark feature of
addiction now to do this I used an
already established model and I exposed
animals rot specifically to a substance
that is commonly found in food and also
happens to be highly rewarding and that
substance is refined white sugar and I
expose these animals to a concentration
that is commonly found in sweetened
beverages so I used a 10% concentration
and for comparison the average can of
Pop has about 11% and I expose these
animals to this concentration of sugar
for 12 hours a day every day for about a
month and some very interesting things
happened the first is that they began to
binge they were consuming about 5% of
their body weight in the first hour
every time they had access to the sugar
now for comparison you can think of some
in my size and my body weight drinking
about three liters of pop or eating
one-third of a kilo of sugar in one hour
they also heavily escalated their intake
over time by the end in a 12 hour period
they were consuming roughly 1/5 of their
body weight which again for comparison
is someone like me consuming 13 liters
of pop or 1.3 kilos of refined white
sugar imagine drinking this or eating
this every day so this was really
shocking to me but what I was interested
in was whether exposure to this amount
of sugar could produce compulsion now
unfortunately you can’t ask an animal
are you addicted to something you can’t
ask an animal are you compulsive so I
had to put them in an evolutionarily
relevant situation one that pit their
instinctual mechanism for avoiding
danger versus this learned behavior to
seek out and consume sugar and when I
did that the animals that have been
consuming massive amounts of sugar
completely ignored they completely
overrode this instinctual mechanism in
favor of seeking out sugar and this is
something that normal healthy animals
will not do but what was happening
neurobiologically what was happening in
their brains well there are some very
specific changes that happen to a brain
when it becomes addicted to a substance
and the changes that happen are
different depending on the type of brain
area that you’re looking at the specific
area that I was interested is implicated
in survival-based motivated behaviors
and it happens to sit between two other
brain areas that have already been
heavily implicated in the development of
addiction
the first is the amygdala which
processes emotional and rewarding
information and the other is the
striatum which is responsible for
reinforcement based learning and motor
control now this area had actually
already been looked at by a colleague of
mine and he was looking at it in animals
that self administered cocaine classic
drug of abuse over a long period of time
and he was able to show that there’s a
very unique change that happens to the
neurons in this brain area they respond
very differently to dopamine which is
the brains primary rewarding
neurotransmitter then the neurons do in
the brains of animals that had either
had no exposure to cocaine or had been
exposed to cocaine but weren’t self
administering it for a long period of
time now when I looked at this brain
area in my animals to my astonishment I
found exactly the same change in their
brains as what was happening in animals
that were self administering cocaine so
what’s happening what does this mean
well our brains are highly evolved
adapted organs and our brains have
evolved to seek out rewarding substances
and perform rewarding behaviors because
in our evolutionary history that meant
survival things like having sex eating
good food avoiding danger
unfortunately this highly adapted system
when it’s exposed to unnaturally
reinforcing substances like drugs
this formerly adaptive process becomes
maladaptive there’s this war going on
between our evolved biology that pushes
us to consume rewarding substances and
pushes us to perform rewarding behaviors
versus our modern environment a society
in which unnaturally reinforcing
substances are plentifully available
this is why we are starting to see
addictions to things that are
fundamentally new
you to our modern society addictions to
things like gambling to videogames and
to food now there’s still quite a bit of
controversy in the scientific literature
about what exactly the properties of
food are that can produce addiction but
I think in general as a society we need
to start thinking about addiction beyond
drugs we need to stop having such a
rigid idea of what the substances are
that can produce addiction we need to
stop thinking about it as drugs versus
other because really any highly
rewarding substance or behavior can
produce the same behavioral and
neurological things that we see in
addiction we need to start thinking of
addiction as a very old brains way of
trying to deal with a very new problem
so I want you to do something for me
when you leave here today I want you to
just be aware and when you see hotly
debated topics like this one in social
media and other spheres I want you to
think and I want you to question and I
want you to investigate because as I
found out addiction doesn’t necessarily
look like what it used to anymore
thank you
you [Applause]