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Chapter 7 - Food-Related Drugs and Food as a Drug

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2023

Richard J. Stevenson
Affiliation:
Macquarie University, Sydney
Heather Francis
Affiliation:
Macquarie University, Sydney
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Summary

This chapter focusses on addiction to food-related drugs and whether food can be thought of as a drug. Section 7.2 considers alcohol, its behavioural effects and how these might arise in the brain. Consequences of chronic use on brain and behaviour are also examined, both for adult neurological sequelae and for foetal brain development. Section 7.3 explores caffeine and theobromine, the former being the world’s most widely used drug. Whether caffeine’s cognitive-behavioural benefits arise from it ameliorating withdrawal in chronic users or whether it has some cognitive enhancing properties in everyone is examined. The biological basis of these cognitive-behavioural effects are also reviewed, including how caffeine may affect striatal dopamine. Section 7.5 examines food addiction. A number of conceptual issues are discussed, namely obesity as an endpoint of addiction, whether there can be addiction to a biological need, and the appropriateness of parallels to substance abuse and behavioural models of addiction.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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