The Descriptive Features of Food Addiction. Addictive Eating and Drinking

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Abstract
Food addiction[long dash]a specific adaptation to one or more regularly consumed foods to which a person is highly sensitive[long dash]produces a common pattern of symptoms descriptively similar to those of other addictive processes. Most often involved are corn, wheat, coffee, milk, eggs, potatoes and other frequently eaten foods. In contrast to the ordinary conception of food sensitization, the food addict is "picked up" temporarily after a meal containing his addictant, but is "let down" subsequently by the delayed recurrence of withdrawal effects or hangover-like symptoms. These hangovers recur regularly early in the morning, during the night, prior to or between meals, provided the specific food is eaten in each meal at the usual hours. The addiction cycle, or the time elapsing between meals and the onset of the hangover, depends on the individual''s degree of sensitivity and the phase of adaptation to the specific excitant or excitants. The oft-repeated consumption of a specific food or an alcoholic beverage derived from it relieves such hangovers temporarily. The more rapid the absorption, the faster the relief and the quicker the inevitable recurrence of the hangover. If the responsible food or its derivatives are taken often enough, specific hangovers may be effectively postponed for as long as this phase of adaptation persists. But as increasingly larger and more frequent doses become necessary for hangover prophylaxis or treatment, an exhaustion phase may eventually develop. This is seen most frequently in the natural history of addictive drinkers. When this develops, each drink is followed by an immediate acute reaction. Specific addictive sensitization to foods is believed to be a major factor in the etiology of addictive eating and drinking. Specific sensitivity to house dust and perhaps other environmental excitants may be major causes in selected instances. In addition to this specific effect of alcoholic beverages, alcohol also exerts a drug or nonspecific action to which chronically exposed individuals presumably adapt in the sense of the general adaptation syndrome. Both specific and general adaptation responses appear to be involved in the mechanism of the addictive drinking of "alcoholic" beverages.

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