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Is it possible to be addicted to food?

It's a controversial idea, with many within the medical community arguing that compulsive eating cannot be compared to heroin addiction.

But a new article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal insists food addiction is real and that the condition should be labelled a psychiatric disorder to allow patients to access better treatments.

Proponents of food addiction say the condition not as simple as overeating. Food addicts are continually obsessed with food and become addicted to the brain chemicals that are released when they eat. They live their days chasing the "high" that comes with food.

The authors of the CMAJ article note that just as alcohol and heroin addicts develop tolerances to low amounts of their "drug," a food addict too needs to increase the amount consumed to achieve "intoxication" or satisfaction. And withdrawal symptoms for food addicts who go on diets can include mood changes and depression.

"Darren" believes he is a food addict and struggled with his addiction for years.

"I can't tell you how often I would think about food. I would finish breakfast and constantly think about it until lunch. Then at dinner, I would think of whether I had a good day or a bad day based on whether I had a big lunch or a small lunch. This was constantly in my head," he told Â鶹ӰÊÓ.

Darren says he fought his weight from the time he was a young boy.

"I just grew and grew and grew and by the time I was 13 years old, I was 5'2 and around 214 pounds," he says.

He later found that sugar and white flour were his key triggers.

"When I eat sugar or flour, it sets off this uncontrollable craving that I can't deal with. I would grab a bag of chips or one ice cream and say 'That is enough for tonight.' But then I could not concentrate on the TV show I was watching, or could not concentrate at work. I would have to go back, something would be pulling me back towards that food, to keep going," he says.

People who obsess about food or just can't stop eating may have food addiction, say experts in the field such as Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, who was not involved in the CMAJ article.

"If a person who struggles all day long, from wake-up to sleep, struggles with dietary choices, that may be a sign of food addiction," says Freedhoff, the director and founder of Ottawa's Bariatric Medical Institute in Ottawa.

"If it only happens in the afternoons, evenings or lunch times, that may have more to do with disordered eating."

Doctors suspect that the number of true food addicts is small, but that the condition is real and should be recognized by psychiatrists.

"The concept of addiction does not negate the role of free will and personal choice," insists commentary author Dr. Valerie Taylor, of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neuroscience at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont.

"It may, however, provide insight into why a subset of individuals with obesity continues to struggle."

Taylor's team concludes that blaming obese people for their problem is unfair when patients are fighting genuine food addictions.

"Although medicine may not yet accept compulsive eating as an addiction, we cannot ignore evidence highlighting the role played by biologic vulnerability and environmental triggers," Taylor says.

Tammy Keddy also struggled with her weight her entire life. She eventually had bariatric surgery to shrink her stomach. But when she was forced to eat less, she found she obsessed about food even more. She would still eat as much as she could and then vomit, eventually developing bulimia.

"Even after the surgery I still had the cravings," she says. "My stomach was under control but my brain and thought patterns were not."

Her problem was diagnosed by a psychiatrist as an addiction to food and finally treated with counselling.

She is now learning to be more aware of what I am eating, and how to deal with her anxiety about food. but she also believes that food addiction is something she'll have to struggle with her whole life.

For many patients, behavioural therapy is effective at managing food addiction. In other cases, medications like naltrexone may help control the cravings.

For Darren, after he eliminated sugar and flour from his diet, he regained control of his eating. When he tried eliminating sugar alone from his diet, he had little success. But when he eliminated both sugar and white flour from his diet, he found freedom.

"It is sort of the way an alcoholic treats alcohol, which is essentially you don't drink anymore. Most people find relief in a matter of weeks to months and then over time, it's not something that pulls you anymore because the actual drug is no longer in your system."

Darren is now slim and fit.

"My head cleared up," he says. "Suddenly I could be productive at work, and the weight was gone."

Darren says he now eats healthy food and smaller portions and is a member of Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous, a support group patterned after the 12-step program developed by Alcoholics Anonymous.

"The most amazing thing is I get to live my life in a normal-sized body. I never thought it would happen."

With a report from CTV medical specialist Avis Favaro and producer Elizabeth St. Philip