Food Addiction – Some Background On Genetics
In food addiction part of my story and yours in life is our genetics. What type of genetics did we inherit? Our appetite for food usually called cravings or hunger pains (much like cravings for other appetites like air, water, and sex) are based on complex biological processes and the various ways they influence one another. For decades scientists have been working on how genetics influence human behavior and play a critical role in the physical and psychological problems we encounter in life. Some scientists focus only on working on these types of issues that impact a food addict. What science has found are genetically encoded traits determine physical and psychological characteristics of human beings or at the very least predispose human beings to physical and psychological characteristics. The same goes for humans with a food addiction.
Food Addiction Folks Are Different!
What most people don’t realize is the experience or sensations of hunger are very, very different from person to person and thus for food addicts. I had assumed for decades that one person pretty much has the same biological sensations and I was very wrong. The thin person assumes his hunger/cravings/taste/ appetite feedback loops are the same as the food addict and vice versa. Your feelings and sensations are quite personal to you not just psychologically or culturally, but are driven by your personal biological inheritance as well as you thoughts and beliefs. That I don’t like yellow is a personal experience for me that is no different than my personal experience of hunger and this is just as much the truth for every human being. Hunger is very much about multiple biological systems such as taste buds, pressures on the stomach from eating (did you know that people without stomachs still get hungry!), the number of fat cells you are born with or acquire in life (so when your fat cells “lose weight” they send out messages saying I am hungry – these fat cells actively try to keep from losing their weight against your desire and intention), insulin levels, sex steroids, glucagons, liver enzymes, intestinal functioning in digestion and human growth hormone all have effects that result in increasing or decreasing appetites.
Folks with a food addiction are “wired” differently. So this thing called appetite is very, very much a biological issue you were born into not something you chose. Unfortunately this is one of the reasons scientists will have a very tough time coming up with a medication that will be the solution. The evidence indicates strongly there will be no “magic pill” for certainly decades to come, so anyone who says they have the answer to food addiction is not likely to be right, although whatever they have may work for some people for some of the time yet will ultimately fail for almost everyone almost all the time.