Expert: Jurriaan Plesman, Nutritional Psychotherapist - 7/22/2006

Question
Hello,
My issue is how to deal with my husbands addiction to food. He has always been over weight even as a child.
But, now its totally out of control. He has CHF and high blood pressure.( he has for 5 years was diagnosed when he was 39 and now is retired/disabled because of it, he is on meds for both his illness and depression) His Drs are telling him to loose weight.He knows he must lose weight, yet he coninues to eat and eat.
It has affected all parts of our lives. We must sit in chair instead of booths because he is to fat to fit into a booth.He cant walk any distances, he cant particpate in things our kids want to do.It has afffected our love life. I am loosing interest in having sex with him,as I am no longer finding him attractive. I see him as completely fat and lazy.It is a huge turn off.
I have attempted to talk to him,in a gentle way and no so gentle way.
I am embarrased by his size.It is a huge burdon having a chronicly ill spouse who is unwilling to do a damn thing about it.
I am worried sick he is going to drop dead from a heart attack, Im just waiting for it to happen. Our kids are worried..
I am just at the end of my rope and hanging on by my teeth, any ideas would be appreciated.

Answer
Hello Kay,

I can see that it is utterly frustrating trying to get your husband to eat less.

But the reality is that this cannot be done by will power. He is suffering from a physical disease related to nutrition. Your husband has a metabolic disorder that he cannotbe controlled by will power.

Most people with an addiction to food are trying to ingest food that are helping him to overcome depression. It is well known that refined carbohydrates such as sugars and sweets help in the production of serotonin the feel good neurotransmitter that makes you feel content and happy.

What happens is, that if you consume sugar, the body produces insulin, that helps to transport nutrients across the membranes of cells  for energy production. Energy is essential in the production of feel good neurotransmitters. But when you have insulin resistance, it means that the receptors for insulin are not working very well in pushing nutrients and glucose into cells.

Insulin helps to push nutrients across cell membranes, except tryptophan. Tryptophan is an amino acid - a protein unit - that can be converted to serotonin, the feel good neurotransmitter.

Thus eating sweets increase insulin secretion, helps nutrient absorption, except tryptophan and this is then converted to serotonin.

In other words, tryptophan that is left behind is converted to serotonin, and voila he feels happy!!! This is how sweets helps overcome depression temporarily. BUT too much sugars in the body that is NOT used for energy production is now stored as fat cells. Thus your husband is fat, because he cannot metabolize all the sugars in food into energy. He is storing unused sugars into fat cells and puts on weight.

The brain is completely dependent on glucose as the only source of energy. That energy is required for the cells to produce the feel good neurotransmitters. Also addiction to sweets will aggravate the insulin resistance and making it worse.

Most people with depression has been found to be hypoglycemic. This can be tested with a special medical test described at our web site. It is different form the usual test for diabetes. It is most often a prediabetic condition.

There may be other food items that you husband may be addicted to. These are usually allergies, that may give him a temporary high, but is then followed by a low. Thus he needs to be tested too for allergies

If he wants to overcome food addiction he needs to go on a hypoglycemic diet. This is a low refined carbohydrate (low sugar and low allergy diet) and a high protein diet, such as the hypoglycemic diet or the Atkins Diet. He also needs nutritional supplements. He can eat as much as he likes of the high protein diet, except sugars .

One way of overcoming sugar cravings is taking GLYCERINE. Search our web site for GLYCERINE. You can obtain it from a pharmacy. Take one table spoon of glycerine in a glass of water (or other fluid) with a dash of lemonade to improve taste. take this maybe three times a day. It stops the craving until the hypoglycemic diet kicks in.

Glycerine is a substance that is not recognized by the pancreas as a sugar and hence does not overstimulate insulin production. It is converted to glucose via the liver, not the pancreas.

To understand what we are talking about please read:

What is Hypoglycemia? at::
http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/what_is_hypo.html

The Serotonin Connection at:
http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/serotonin_connection.html

Depression: a Nutritional Disorder at: http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/depression_disorder.html

The Hypoglycemic Diet at:
http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/hypoglycemic_diet.html

“Finding your Allergies” at:
http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/finding_your_allergies.html

Please discuss with a Nutritional Doctor or a Clinical Nutritionist.

I hope I have been of some help.

Jurriaan Plesman BA (Psych), Post Grad Dip Clin Nutr.
Author of "Getting off the Hook" (Google Book Search)
For more free articles
www.hypoglycemia.asn.au