Constant cravings. Does Food Addiction Exist.

Sally Marlow, a researcher in alcohol addiction at London's Institute of Psychiatry, presents a programme which looks at the controversy around whether compulsive eating is an addiction. She asks whether this behaviour is psychological, biomedical, neurological or a pattern of behaviour gone wrong. Two compulsive over-eaters whose identities have been anonomised talk about their 'addiction'. Marlow speaks to John Menzies who is working on a project called 'Neurofast' and Ulrike Schmidt who works with binge-eating behaviour; there is evidence from animal testing that addiction to sugar can be artificially stimulated. Marlow looks at other work in this field which draws parrallels with Pavlovian conditioned behaviour. Jim Orford studies addictive behaviours, particularly gambling. Jane Ogden, psychologists, talks about the paradox of having to control eating but yet live to eat. 'OA' or Overeaters Anonymous has used the 12 step model used in Alcoholics Anonymous. At Hope House, addiction in women is tackled. It is led by Nicola Slesinger (?). Caitlin O'Hara talks about the risks of 'blocking' rewards. Nora Volcov is looking at addiction to cocaine; there is no incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs which tackle this addiction. However, if the same medication could be used for obesity, this could be a breakthrough. For obesity, gastric bands can help people who are binge eaters who are never full according to Amit Patel - but this treatment is only offered to the morbidly obese.