Throughout many decades of working with thousands of patients who are struggling with eating disorders, my research has proven time and time again that disordered eating is caused by biology, not by a deficit in will or character. Disordered eating is often caused by addiction to food. Eating foods high in sugar wreaks havoc with the body’s natural systems of craving and reward, skewing the functioning of neurotransmitters, the chemical messengers in the brain. The food acts upon the part of the brain that makes us feel good, the center of pleasure and reward.
Over time, and with the right biochemical vulnerability, the brain adapts to and compensates for the artificial revving up. Reacting to the sugar assault, it works overtime to restore equilibrium by decreasing the release of dopamine – a neurotransmitter heavily involved in reward-motivated behavior – leaving pleasure and reward circuits depleted. Without dopamine, the brain depends increasingly on an artificial stimulus to feel normal.
For many of your patients struggling with disordered eating, the dopamine cycle goes haywire in the same way it responds to alcohol in alcoholics. Both alcohol and food cues stimulate the reward circuitry in the brain. Because it is a deep, unconscious process, it is beyond the control of willpower alone.
The New Hope Model: Restoring Control
Disordered eating comes from a complex interplay between our lifestyle choices, our history and, most importantly, our individual biochemistry.
In my book — Integrative Medicine for Binge Eating — I have attempted to combine insights from different fields of medicine and psychiatry related to disordered eating. After more than 30 years in practice, I am convinced of the direct influences of what we eat and how we digest food on our behaviors and our feelings. This book explores the complex landscape of disordered eating and the tools now available to treat and to prevent it.
We can help patients change how they eat and better understand emotional issues that may coexist with an eating problem. Most importantly, we can use science to help patients find their way off the roller coaster. As the problem of disordered eating is fundamentally biological, so is the solution.
If your patient’s life involves a pattern of binging, shame, and restricted eating, this book will foster hope. You will learn the basic biochemistry behind food addiction and how the brain is caught in a cycle of pleasure and need. Then, you can unleash the power of science to change your patients’ relationship with food.
My approach does not suggest that there is ONE answer to binge eating. Instead, mine is a comprehensive approach that evolves from the field of integrative medicine.
It is dysregulation in the brain that causes the appetite to run wild. Consequently, the New Hope Model is designed to restore brain health. A return to brain health invites the realization of mental and emotional freedom as well as physical balance and well-being, ending a frantic and tortured roller-coaster ride.
Recognizing that cravings for food come from deep within our biochemistry and outside our conscious control should lead everyone to see disordered eating through a different lens. And just as we have misdiagnosed the problem of binge eating and overeating in the past, we have until now missed finding effective, permanent solutions.
But things have changed, and your treatment approach can change, too.
We now have a much more accurate understanding of the complicated, neurochemical process of appetite. We now know that food cravings are the manifestations of a genetically-based biochemical disorder that skews the body’s natural signals of hunger and satiety (fullness).
Over many years, I have treated thousands of patients suffering from appetite disturbances. I have developed a science-based approach to binge eating. This is an integrative approach founded on the insights from current medical research combined with natural strategies.
Because appetite disorders are caused by a combination of many factors, an integrative approach provides the best — and most lasting — solution.
The definition of hope is belief in things you cannot yet see, so I am asking you now to take hope based on my experience. As a psychiatrist in practice for more than twenty years, I have witnessed thousands of patients regain a normal relationship with food and appetite. It can happen to your patients, too. Your patients can and will get off the roller coaster with the right approach.
To this end, I have developed the new, certified Binge Eating Disorder and Food Addiction training, based on this New Hope Model. The beauty of this particular training is that it is digestible for all professionals who work with individuals suffering from eating disorders. It takes the complexities of disordered eating and simplifies it. It takes evidenced-based data and puts it in a practice package for you that is accessible and adaptable no matter your medical or therapeutic setting. With the augmented skills you gain from this self-paced course, you continue to thrive as a confident provider with an amplified toolkit that your patients want, need and deserve.
