Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (4:24)

I would say, yeah, it's kind of interesting, isn't it, this idea that sugar can be addictive. I guess people would say, yes, there are addictive properties of sugary foods. But going that step further to say sugar addiction is a real problem or ultra processed food addiction is a real problem is something that is still pretty controversial. You have been a clinical psychologist for many, many years. I think you identify as a food or sugar addicts yourself.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (5:03)

I do.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (5:04)

In your view, as someone who's at the cutting edge of this, Jen, why do you think this idea that food can be addictive for some people is so controversial?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (5:16)

Yeah, you're completely right. It is still controversial. And people do say, which kind of makes sense. How can food be addictive? Because we need to eat. So it makes no sense that something we have to have can be addictive. So for example, people will say, you know, we don't need alcohol to survive and alcohol's that substance which we know does have those effects in the brain, whereas food we need to survive. My kind of response to that is, well, it's not all food, so we say food addiction. But we can perhaps go into the nuance of what, what we should call this disorder. Some people say sugar addiction because there is a lot of evidence now from brain studies that of those effects, I was saying about sugar sort of lighting up the reward centers. So sugar we know is, is a substance that kind of lights up the brain refined carbohydrates because they very soon become sugar. You know, they, they can, they can have the same effect. And we don't have to eat those foods. So obviously we have to eat to survive. And we need nutrient dense food to feed the body and brain. We don't have to eat sugar and we certainly don't have to eat ultra processed foods that have been sort of manufactured in a factory and literally designed to hook us. The writing was on the wall for the cigarette companies. Those companies bought a lot of the big food companies and brought their marketing and their sort of science and to the formulation of those foods. And literally sort of have people in brain scanners while they're, while they testing out their formulations to see what lights up the brain more. So they kind of literally designing these foods to get us hooked. There's that fantastic book by Michael Moss called Hooked, which sort of exposes this whole kind of industry. So, you know, we probably shouldn't call some of those things food. So that would be my argument really is that certain food type substances have the same effect on the brain and can become addictive for some people. So we have to be, I think it really helps to think of the whole thing like alcohol. So we know that most of us as adults get exposed to alcohol. Some people really like it. They have maybe too much, maybe harmful users. But then some people will develop a real problem with their relationship with alcohol, will become a substance use disorder. I see it as exactly the same with these kinds of foods that some of us have this. For whatever reason, genetic trauma can be a factor. You know, just overexposure. When we're very young, we develop that substance use disorder, which is very different from people saying sort of blithely, I'm, you know, oh, I'm addicted to ice cream. Because they, they love it and they have it maybe a couple of times a week. It's very different. A person with an actual food use disorder, the extent of the impact on their lives, for example. So although it's a continuum, you've got people who you wouldn't classify as having food addiction as such, and people that you really would. And those are the sort of people that I identify with. And I'm trying to look into the research and look into the sort of treatment programs that can help people. But I think using that comparator is a really good cause. Everybody understands, all the public understand that, don't they? They understand that some people have lost control of their relationship with alcohol and they need to abstain and so it's a very similar picture in my view, but it is still, it is still controversial. And obviously there are people who are very anti the idea, particularly the processed food industry.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (9:22)

Yeah. We'll talk later perhaps about the merits of getting this established formally as a diagnostic category. You know, food addiction or sugar addiction. Okay. My hope for this conversation is that it helps people understand if they may have a problem with food, they may already know that anyway, but it may help them see it in a different light.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (9:45)

Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (9:45)

And then it's also really practical to help them actually start to do something about it. Because I think one thing that I think we've both seen lots of is this idea that knowledge doesn't always convert to action. People can read books or listen to podcasts about the damages of excess sugar intake. Right. They can see about its relationship with type 2 diabetes or obesity or your teeth or whatever it might be. And they can even go on these two three week elimination protocols or diets and go through the withdrawal. And yeah, you know what? I've got so much energy, my skin's clearer, I can concentrate for longer, my sleep's better. Yet some people, that's not enough. They go back. And as you said right at the start, I think one of the problems is that people then feel guilt and shame because Susan down the road can have a sweet treat at Christmas once a year and doesn't think about it for the rest of the year. Whereas other people, they just have it once. And I think you have a quote. One is too many. A thousand is never enough.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (10:58)

I love that quote because it just. Anybody who's listening who has a food addiction problem will recognize that, that it's the first biscuit or the first spoon of ice cream that sets it off. And then you can't stop until you've had, you know, way too much. And even that doesn't feel like enough.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (11:17)

Yeah. What was the Pringles marketing campaign a few years ago? You know, once you pop, you can't stop.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (11:22)

Now, they literally usually those. Yeah. Marketing terms.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (11:26)

What I think a lot of people don't understand is that it sounds like a catchy marketing slogan. You know, nothing wrong there. They're just trying to market their products. But underpinning that is something really quite dangerous because a lot of people can't stop. They don't realize that that food has been engineered to hit the bliss point in your brain so that if you are predisposed that way, you actually cannot.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (11:55)

You can't. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (11:57)

So let's just get some Perspective here. Okay. We're obviously living in, you know, a very toxic food environment in the 21st century, depending on where you live in the world. But I think in most countries now, most countries, it's become a very problematic food environment.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (12:12)

Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (12:12)

If we go back to our hunter gatherer ancestors, do you think that sugar addiction existed back then?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (12:24)

That's such a great question. And I love the evolutionary lens and I think it really helps us to sort of understand. So I think the reward center evolved in the brain to keep us alive, essentially, didn't it? And one of the things that we needed to do to stay alive was to eat as much as we could when it was available, because there would be times when it wasn't available, and particularly in the winter. So this is, I think it's kind of, you know, widely talked about now, isn't it, that, you know, in the autumn we needed to really eat all the fruit that we could find and it wouldn't be like, certainly in this country, it wasn't like we have now. There weren't banana trees and sugary mango trees and things like, things we can get now. There would be little sour berries, but, you know, as many as we could eat would help us to put on weight. And the same with nuts. You know, they were there in the autumn and so we would get those. If we were really driven, and I probably would have been one of these people, we might shimmy up a tree and get some honey out of a tree from the bees. But we'd have to be really driven to do that because we're gonna get stung, probably and, you know, maybe fall out of the tree. So we had to be really motivated to, to go and get that food. And that was how we survived. It wasn't available all year round, so we didn't even have eggs all year round. We would have had those. Everything was seasonal. And there's lots of evidence, isn't there, that wherever humans went, they basically led to the extinction of all the sort of fatty herbivores, because that was what we like to eat, meat and, and fat. So I, I think there wasn't. There wouldn't have been people who had a food addiction because the food wasn't. The environment didn't support that behavior. You couldn't just go and, and get stuff. Whereas now it's all year round, it's everywhere. You don't have to leave the sofa.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (14:26)

That's the key problem, isn't it? Yeah, I think because on several occasions I've spoken to people who have spent Time and lived with hunter gatherers.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (14:36)

Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (14:37)

If I think last time I spoke to Daniel Lieberman, Professor Daniel Lieberman from Harvard, I think he told me that he has been out on a hunt with the hunter tribe who are hunt together tribe, you know, amazing. Still living, I think in Tanzania in the way that they've always lived to, you know, mostly. And I think he's been out with tribesmen when they find honey or they've had a long day out, they didn't manage to capture the whatever animal they were hunting that they would literally gorge on honey, but they found the honey, they got it and they would literally almost like drink it. And so there's a couple of things for me that come up there which is people say, oh, I've got a sweet tooth. You know, this is. Well, I kind of think we've all got a sweet tooth. You know, we evolved to have it. Exactly. It served us very, very well in a different food environment. In this food environment.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (15:33)

And our brains haven't, you know, that's such a small space of time from that food environment to this. In terms of evolution, our brains are just the same essentially.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (15:43)

But going back to guilt, shame, lack of willpower, I think it's pretty clear that if you took those tribesmen and women and put them in a modern western city in six months, you'd probably see the same patterns. Right. I don't think they have any better ability to not take the sugar when it's there. And the reason I share that is because I know from chatting to patients over the years, I know how many people beat themselves up on this. They think that they're the failure. There's something wrong with them. It's like actually, no, it's this food environment that's proving really problematic for you.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (16:23)

We never needed an off switch for food. We always just needed an on switch. Motivated to go get. And I would have been one of those. That was a, that was a go getter for food. That's why I'm here. Because my ancestors were good, were good at that. They were driven to survive. And so that's, that's how I'm here today. So we, we never needed an off switch and now we haven't got an off switch and food is, is everywhere. I mean, I'm amazed that anybody's a normal weight, to be honest. Or anybody isn't. Everybody isn't type 2 diabetic because. Yeah, because of the environment that we live in and also just the culture around food, you know, now today.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (17:03)

Yeah, it's Kind of interesting that you're surprised that anyone is of a normal weight these days, or what is considered in a Versacom is a normal weight.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (17:13)

I think you have to try quite hard to be healthy.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (17:17)

Yeah. And if we look at the stats, it's unusual to be of a normal weight in many countries now, certainly in America and here in the uk. Right. So the norm is to be overweight

Dr. Jenn Unwin (17:30)

or obese and metabolically.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (17:31)

And metabolically unwell. When your husband, David came on a few months ago, we were chatting in detail about this. In fact, I think you guys are the first husband and wife couple to have appeared on the show in different conversations, not together, about relationship advice. Although maybe we could do that at some point in the future.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (17:50)

Maybe.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (17:51)

But this idea that it's not normal anymore, I think is something that we can all reflect on. And what does that say? Is there a risk, though, that this kind of message is disempowering? And what I mean by that is if we're just victims to the food environment, I guess some people might make the case, Jen, that, well, there's nothing we can do until the food environment changes. I'm just playing devil's advocate there.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (18:20)

Yeah, no, I understand. Or people. People can feel so hopeless because that's the environment we live in. And so give us some hope. It's difficult. Yeah, it's difficult. So the hope, of course, isn't. It's exactly. Your message of this podcast is that we can make small changes to our own environments. We can have control over the things that we do on a daily basis that will really impact our metabolic health, but also cravings and the way that we respond to food. So it is supremely possible to become a food addict in recovery. It just takes some effort. So I think another thing that I like to say is it's not your fault that you have these struggles, but once you know the information that we're talking about today, then it can become your responsibility to do something different.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (19:20)

Well, then almost has to become your responsibility because there's no other option.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (19:24)

Yeah. That's why I call the book Fork in the Road, because there are choices. We all have choices every day, multiple times a day, about which path we're choosing, whether we're choosing health and wellbeing, or whether we're choosing a path which is going to lead us into worse mental wellbeing, worse physical health. And, you know, it can be difficult to always make the right choice. And I'm not saying, you know, any of us are perfect at that. You know, we all maybe take the wrong step from time to time. But I think if we've got that, it's almost like having a lighthouse that you're, you're aiming for that even if you take a wrong step, you can still sort of reroute and be following. You know, it's important that people are thinking about, well, when do they feel at their best, what's really important to them. So we were talking before we came on about family and that that's, that's so important. And I think if you can attach to those sorts of aims and goals in the moment, it can help you to make perhaps what seems the more difficult choice. But actually it's the choice that's going to lead you, keep you well, lead you towards being able to live the life that you were kind of born to live and not be living. I've got a lovely clip which I often use in my lectures of one of the people that took part in our treatment study. And we asked him, what's it like to have food addiction? He just said, it's hell. You have no hope. You're on a roller coaster that you feel, you just don't see any way off. You know, you feel you can't control your own behavior. You feel totally hopeless about that. That's no way to live. And I know because I've been there myself as well, that that's, that's a place where you're not connecting with family, you're not doing your best at work, you're not looking after yourself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (21:13)

Yeah. As part of my research for this conversation, I watched your conversation with Ken berry on his YouTube channel. And it's a fascinating conversation. What was even more fascinating was reading the comments under that interview. And I wrote a few down because when people challenge this idea that it's an addiction, and I understand, and sometimes I think these are academic things because ultimately, what does an individual want? If an individual is consuming too much food, whether that be sugar, ultra processed foods or whatever else in a way that's harming their physical health and mental well being, they want help to reduce stroke. Stop that. Whether we as professionals call it an addiction or not, ultimately for that individual, they just want help, Right?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (22:05)

Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (22:05)

And some of the comments underneath that video were these, right? One, one person said, I'm addicted to sugar. I gave up cigarettes so easy, never got back to it. But man, that sugar is really my drug. I can't stop it. Someone else, Jen, said, I used to lie to my wife, go out and secretly buy ice cream with cash so she couldn't track it. Someone else said, sugar is harder for me to quit than crack or meth was. I was a user of them for 11 years. If you heard those three comments about some other drug, you would probably go, they've got an addiction problem, wouldn't you? Yeah, but we don't go to that. So I guess first of all, why do you think it's important to have this recognized as a formal addiction or do you think it's important?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (23:05)

Yes, I do think it's important. And the charity that I work with, that's one of our key aims, is to get the world health organizations recognize this condition. So there's quite a lot of evidence, there's been a few research papers where if you label this kind of behavior as addictive, you know, people might, you might say, oh, that's stigmatizing, or people don't wanna be labele labeled as an addict. But actually the research shows that that label makes people more sympathetic to themselves and it also makes us more sympathetic to others because then we can understand a behavior that on the face of it looks illogical. You know, why you've got type 2 diabetes, why are you still having ice cream every every day, all these biscuits? You know, it, it seems like a crazy thing to do. But if we, if we label it as an addiction, I think people these days do understand. For example, you know, most of us know someone who's had an alcohol problem. Well, we've seen it in the media where people have done that and then they, through abstinence and other practices, they, you know, they're in recovery from that. So I think we can feel more sympathetic, number one. Number two, I think we've got these massive epidemics that we've sort of touched on of obesity, type 2 diabetes, metabolic unwellness, mental health problems. And could it be that part of that story is to do for some people and why, you know, they continue to suffer is to do with the fact that they've got an addiction to sugar and these ultra processed foods. And until we incorporate that in our treatment as healthcare professionals, they're never going to be successful. And also, you know, same with the, we not really touched on eating disorders which sort of overlap with food addiction, but many people with, with an eating disorder actually have a food addiction. And at the moment you can't get treatment for that in the, in the

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (25:08)

uk you can't get treatment for what?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (25:10)

For food addiction.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (25:11)

But you can of course for eating disorders.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (25:13)

You can, of course for eating disorders. But if someone was misdiagnosed and they actually had an eating disorder, a food addiction, beg your pardon? And they're in an eating disorder service, they're going to get the wrong approach of treatment.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (25:26)

So are they quite markedly different the approaches you would take?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (25:30)

So generally, although obviously that's not my field of expertise, eating disorders, but generally the idea of an eating disorder treatment program is a sort of all foods fit. You know, it's good. You shouldn't restrict certain food categories and you should be able to sort of eat all foods. Now, when I was really in the midst of my food, if I'd gone into a program like that, I never would have succeeded because I could never could eat all foods and be all right. So I couldn't have had biscuits and been all right by definition because I'd lost my control of that relationship.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (26:09)

That's because, as you say, one is too many, a thousand is never enough.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (26:12)

So I'd never have been in recovery there.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (26:14)

Yeah. And we will get to your personal story, Jen, but my understanding is that there are certain foods now that you simply cannot have. Not even one. And you've learned over the years to go, no, no, I just abstained. That's almost like a gateway food. If I start, I won't stop. And as you say, that might be different advice from what you're getting in an eating disorder clinic. So going back to that earlier question, I guess one of the reasons why it might be so useful to get this recognized is so there's a difference

Dr. Jenn Unwin (26:45)

between the right people get the right treatment and treatment is available. So at the moment, because it's not a recognized condition, of course research isn't funded or treatment clinics aren't funded. So if you go to your GP and you say, I can't give up cigarettes, they can send you to the quit smoking service. If you have lost control of your ratio with alcohol, they can send you to the alcohol team or the drug team. If you go to your GP and say, I'm addicted to sugar, I don't know what they would do unless they go and see David, obviously, and he's got a very good idea of what to do. But I think generally if people went to their doctors and said that they wouldn't know where to refer them, and if they referred them to eating disorder service, that may or may not be right for them. So we've made now a second application to the WHO to get food addiction as a recognized disorder. So we've actually applied for it to be called ultra processed food use disorder. That's where the most research exists. This use disorder term is the term that is used in the international classification of diseases. So you get alcohol use disorder, for example.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (27:58)

Formal term.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (27:58)

This is a formal term. So we've called it ultra processed food use disorder. And I think that nicely points the finger where the finger needs pointing about where the, where the problem is. It links back to this issue about the food supply. You know, I think in the last few years there's been really this growing recognition of the dangers of ultra processed food. You talk about it on the podcast. We've got the wonderful Chris Van Tolleken's book, you know, lots of stuff. You've spoken to Rob Lustig. So I, I think we are starting to recognize the harms that those foods have on us physically and mentally. And for this proportion of vulnerable people, you know, that they can get stuck in this addictive relationship.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (28:44)

Yeah. And I think there's a wider point here for us to really unpack, which is that actually we should recognize that there are certain foods which I guess Michael Pollan would call food like substances as opposed to perfect foods. Right. That can be addictive. So in your experience and from your research, what are the common foods that people have a problematic relationship with? Hey, guys. Just taking a quick break from this week's episode to ask you a small favor. On this show, I'm always looking to improve things. Make sure I'm booking the most interesting guests, having conversations about the right topics, and building relationships with the most aligned sponsors. But in order to do this, my team and I need to know a little bit more about you. So we have created a super short survey that I would dearly love you to fill out. It will only take you about two minutes to do so, and I would honestly really appreciate it. All you have to do is go to doctorchattergy.com forward slash survey. That's drchatterjee.com survey. Today's episode is sponsored by DO Health, a personalized health companion that I have helped create. Now, I built Do Health to transform the way we think about health. You see, for many years whilst working in the nhs, I saw the same thing over and over again. Modern medicine is really good at treating illness, but it was never designed to prevent you from getting sick in the first place, nor to optimize your health. DO Health is here to change that. It takes everything that I know about health and wellbeing, including my four pillars of health, and makes it personal to you. You get an initial blood test which measures and screens you for over 50 biomarkers but then all the focus turns to the 11 core biomarkers that are scientifically proven to improve your metabolic health, including many markers which are not easy to get from your NHS gp, like fasting insulin, APOB and homocysteine. Once we have your blood tests each week, together with you, we create a personal achievable plan and several times a year we recheck your bloods to make sure that things are moving in the right direction. This is the future of preventative health. A few small changes that will have a huge impact on your life. For listeners of my show, DO Health are offering you fixed early access pricing, less than 21 pounds per month to all those that sign up to the waitlist today. This is incredible value. Don't forget that this price includes three yearly blood tests as well as 52 custom weekly plans and unlimited daily interactions with Coach Joy. All you have to do is go to dohealth co forward slash Live More and use the code Live More to gain access to the wait list right now. So, in your experience and from your research, what are the common foods that people have a problematic relationship with?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (32:39)

Yeah, so things that have that combination of sugar, fat, refined grains and salt. Yeah. Although salt on its own probably isn't the problem, but when it's combined with these other things. So that's so many of the modern foods that we eat. I mean, bread has got most of those things now, hasn't it? Sort of the industrially made bread, pizzas, doughnuts, you've got ice cream, cakes, biscuits,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (33:09)

all of these sort of tortilla chips.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (33:12)

Some people I know, Dorito type things. Yeah. Crunchy, as you said, so many ingredients and kind of formulated to hit that sweet, sour, salty, crunchy.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (33:23)

Yeah. What I've noticed, Jen, is, and this is obviously you have to make progress somewhere. Like if you can get the who, the World Health Organization to recognize it, you know, around ultra processed foods, it opens the door to progressing that over the years. Right. Because one thing I think, look, if we deal with ultra processed foods first, you know, you can get perhaps an inverted commas clean tortilla chip packet. Right. Which only has three or four ingredients. But it's not only the ingredients, it's the combination of them together that becomes problematic.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (34:04)

Yeah. Our hunter gatherer ancestors didn't have crunchy salt, sweet together, together.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (34:11)

Which is a delight for the taste buds. Yeah, exactly, it really is.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (34:15)

And that's what. Yeah, that's your brain lighting up, isn't it? You can almost feel it kind of bing, bing, bing, you know, when you, when you eat these things, you, that's the pleasure, the reward, that's the, the brain kind of very quickly because they, they enter the bloodstream very quickly. That's another thing about drugs, isn't it? The faster they enter the bloodstream and hit the brain, the more addictive they are. So foods that we all know that foods that are whole foods that are full of fiber and sort of natural, they get digested slowly. So those, the sugar and the. It's not, it doesn't hit the brain in the same way as these processed foods with processed grains, sugar, salt, fat, all quickly, quickly available.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (35:01)

People can also overeat whole foods, can't they?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (35:05)

For sure.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (35:06)

Which I guess takes it beyond UPF Ultra processed foods, which of course I think is the main problem. But dairy nuts.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (35:16)

Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (35:17)

I actually heard when you spoke to Ken Berry on that conversation, he was talking about a patient who was addicted to steak. I don't know if you remember that Ken was saying to you that they cut bits of steak, put them in a Ziploc bag and put them in the bathroom. And they'll sometimes sneak off to the bathroom, lock the door and eat what must be cold or room temperature steak, which. So this whole idea of addiction, problematic relationships with food, it's massive, isn't it? And there's certainly a proportion of people who are really struggling with that, which is why the conventional advice is often not working for them.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (35:53)

They'll overeat anything. In a way. There's a thing called volume addiction where people kind of get addicted just to having large amounts of food. And there's many explanations being put forward. One is, you know, when you stretch the stomach, you actually get oxytocin, serotonin kind of release. So you do get, you know, in some ways these sort of neurotransmitter highs. I think the other thing to remember is that with any addiction, it's not just about the substance exactly. It's about the behavior. So it's about the cues, it's about who you're with, you know, the sort of social side of it. There's also the sort of comfort side of certain behaviors. So that's where you can get this overlap with binge eating and eating behaviors that are sort of triggered by emotional states. Because we, for comfort, you know, or if there's a trauma history, we're maybe eating to, you know, to feel okay. Gabor Mate talks about this a lot, doesn't he? He's really the, the king of, of that, of that topic, you know, that we're eating to sort of fill a void in a sense. So obviously, just like any addiction treatment, where people are coming into treatment, you have to take all of that into account. The other thing is that, say, so we were talking about nut butters before, weren't we as well? And how that is a combination of, you know, carbohydrate, fat, salt, again, which you wouldn't really have had so much in. In nature. So things like nuts and dairy do have that rare combination of. Of fat, carbohydrate, protein. They're the only sort of whole foods that. That have that. And they can be problematic. Well, for any of us. But certainly those of us that are, you know, develops a food addiction problem can very easily overeat those things. And the other thing about addiction that we kind of touched on, but we didn't really go into is that once you've wired the brain for addiction, however that started, all addictions look the same in the brain. And so there was that lovely quotes you were giving from the people who'd listened to Ken's podcast about, you know, well, I gave up this. But then sugar was my problem. It is sort of one problem with many outlets. And if you treat somebody's main addiction problem, it's a very common thing that other things will try and take its place because you're still looking for that dopamine hit. So, for example, if you go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, you see a lot of strong cups of coffee. You often see people smoking. There's a lot of cake and biscuits, because people are. People are trying to sort of get that hit. Or we all know if you give up smoking, people put on weight because they start eating polar mints. Or another really stark example is when people have bariatric surgery, because a lot of those people will be food addicts. And then they can't, you know, they can't get that comfort from food. And a known side effect of bariatric surgery is the development of a new alcohol use problem. Because people at people can still, you know, get the alcohol.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (39:14)

So you cut off one pipeline to that dopamine. But the brain has been wired in that individual to still want that. So they can't get it from food. Cause they feel full. They've had bariatric surgery, they're gonna stick.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (39:26)

They look for other sources of dopamine

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (39:28)

to get the same feeling. Right. Because even going back to what you were saying before about emotions, of course, one of the biggest reasons that we overeat, I think, whether you're A food addict or not. Yes, certainly from my clinical experience.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (39:46)

Comfort eating.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (39:47)

We eat our emotions.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (39:48)

Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (39:48)

You know, stress. We don't need a hole in our stomach. It's often the hole in our hearts. Right. Loneliness, stress. A day on zooms when no natural light. We haven't been out, whatever it might be. Sugar gives you that natural. That quick hit.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (40:03)

That quick hit. Or, you know, that sort of feeling, to some extent, of calm. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (40:10)

One of the things I'm passionate about, and with every passing gear, I become more and more passionate about this idea, is that it's very rare that there's one piece of advice that works for everyone. Okay, so, for example, in the context of what we're talking about, Jen, it is common now with, you know, many nutrition professionals, not everyone, to be clear, but. But many people will say, you shouldn't restrict anything. And I understand the rationale behind that. Right. I totally understand the rationale behind that. And those professionals will probably share. Case studies say, well, listen, I had a patient like this, and when I help them not restrict and say, it's okay to have a little bit of everything, it works for them.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (40:59)

Yeah, agreed.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (41:01)

But then they make the next step, which is that's the advice for everyone. And it ain't.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (41:06)

It's not right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (41:07)

No, what you're saying is, you know that that approach worked for one of your clients or your patients, and maybe it worked for 100 of them. It doesn't mean it works for everyone. As you say, and we'll get into your story, that approach probably wouldn't have worked for you. And you know that general advice, that restriction means that you've got a problematic relationship with food, which is what many people say, I just think is nonsense. Right. In this modern food environment, in my view, if you're not restricting something to a degree, you're probably gonna be struggling with many aspects of your health. That's not the norm. That's not what people expect people to say. That's just what I've experienced myself, and that's what I've experienced with my patients over the years. You know, in fact, I would say, from what I've seen, Jen, there's also this idea that, you know, health is about adding in stuff to your diet. You know, you know, blueberries do this. You want to add in blueberries, this food does that. You want to add that in. Great. I'm not against that. And I would say in my clinical career, most of my benefit with patients has come from when they cut out stuff. So rather than adding in Healthy things. They cut out things that were problematic. Yeah, but that's not the conventional view.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (42:25)

Yeah, I think the word restriction is such a kind of.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (42:28)

It's a triggering word.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (42:29)

It's a triggering word. We're going, oh, you mustn't. And that's, you know, going back to the eating disorder side. And I can see why, you know, for some people, they've over restricted, they've dieted all their lives. I think if you restrict. So there's restricting calories and nutrition, which is a very bad idea, and then there's restricting certain things which are harming you or which you can't control. But overall you're really focusing on getting nutrient dense foods in the right amounts that the body needs. You're not restricting calories and you're not restricting proteins and fats, essentially the essential ones that you need. I think those are two completely different things. And I think women particularly have over restricted calories, fat and protein. And in my view, this is why we see a lot more women come forward with sort of food addiction problems because they're essentially malnourished and their bodies are sort of saying, you know, keep eating, keep eating, because we need, we need more nourishment. It's not, what they're eating isn't nutrient dense. So we, as you, you've said that we, you know, we've done treatment programs and we've even done some residentials where we've sort of had people around for the weekends and they're always amazed. So I work with Heidi, who's a nutritionist, Heidi Yeaver. They're just amazed at the amount of protein that we both put on our plates and they're like, wow, you can have that much protein? Well, yes, you know, that's the amount you need. And I think, you know, as women, we'd all been trained that you mustn't put fat on it and you have to have this tiny amount of protein.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (44:20)

I think you bring some, you know, you raise some really important points. Jen, there. You know, if someone has been overly restricting, Right. Maybe because of toxic diet culture and all kinds of things for a number of years. Yes. For that individual, it may be that actually the right approach is, hey, listen, you've overly restricted. We need to bring things in. We don't want you restricting anymore because restriction for you causes problems. At the same time, if someone has an overt problematic relationship with sugar or ultra processed foods, restricting those things might be the best thing that ever happens to them. Right. So one of the things that I Guess I just, I find gets people into problems these days. You know, there's great that there's so much content out there. There's so much information for people to consume. And the downside is that too much of it becomes black or white. It's either that or that. And the truth is, a lot of different approaches work for a lot of different people. So the question is, what's the right approach for you? For you.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (45:29)

And you have to. The only way you're an N equals one experiment. This is what I've found with my own experience. And you have to work out which foods those are that trigger you and that don't and how to nourish yourself with the right amounts of foods that you need for your, you know, brain. All our genetics is so unique, aren't they? We've all got these different sort of.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (45:55)

I think it's not for me. It's not only our genetics. We've all got a different trauma history, a different childhood.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (46:02)

Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (46:03)

And, you know, I used to see this all the time with patients that, you know, people think, oh, you know, my mum did this. It's in my genesis.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (46:14)

Well, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (46:15)

Or it could be that you saw your mother's problematic relationship with food as a child and she emotionally ate. So you also emotionally ate. And I've also seen it where. And I'm not blaming anyone when I say this, it's just a neutral observation that for some. And it could be dads as well, you know, it could be that if your adult caregivers when you were growing up, emotionally ate and they did it in front of you, sometimes they'll do that with you because it's a bonding. Hey, I don't feel good. Yes, let's all open up.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (46:47)

Yeah, exactly. Let's all have ice cream. For sure. There's a family culture.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (46:50)

Yeah. Again, I'm not blaming anyone here, but it may be that you just observed that you, you know, embodied it. And then at 40 years old now. Yeah, that's now problematic for you. Maybe you got away with it as a teenager, but you ain't getting away with it anymore. And so for that individual that needs to be looked at, I mean, I guess you spent.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (47:12)

These behaviors are so ingrained in our psyche, aren't they? And I think the other thing which is super important is that. So we never. We don't give our kids caffeine or alcohol or drugs. We just don't. But we give them sugar and often that's kind of glorified, isn't it? You know, you bang your knee, you're crying, you know, come and sit down and, you know, have a lollipop or something. And so we give our children these foods that we now know, because we've got the studies that show that they, you know, they're altering the structure and function of their brains. And I think society doesn't yet. It's changing, it's improving, but society doesn't yet view these foods with enough skepticism and enough concern for our children's health. Because once, as we've already said, once the brain is wired for addiction, it's wired. And if those children have got. There is a bit of a genetic component. There's also the kind of, like you say, the family culture component. If there's a traumatic situation going on, we show a brilliant. A video of Eric Clapton, who was famous for his drug and alcohol problems. And an interviewer says to him, you know, so when did it start? Was it cocaine kind of thing? He says, no, it was sugar. He said, when I was a kid, that was how I altered my. It's the thing I had available to alter my consciousness, my sense of, you know, how I felt. And so I. That was what I used. And I've spoken to a lot of people who say similar things. That was what they had available. They were in very difficult situations, but they could get sugar, ice cream, you know, crisps, and that was their comfort.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (49:11)

You almost learn it subconsciously. You know, the human desire for most behaviors comes from this need to change our state. Right. We don't like the way we're feeling, you know, boredom, frustration, anger, whatever it might be. And so we want to engage in something to change that. And that something could be Instagram, TikTok.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (49:40)

We're not talked about scrolling, but that's another dopamine hit.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (49:43)

It could be a cigarette. It could also be foods, drinks. And in many ways, they all try to do the same thing. So the question is, what have you been conditioned to do? What's your kind of inadvertent drug of choice?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (49:57)

What's available?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (49:58)

Yeah. And you bring it up with the children. And I think that's. You know, I had Professor Dale Bredesen on a few months ago, this amazing neurologist, the first person to publish studies showing a reversal of Alzheimer's. This was early. Right. But I think his first trial was in 2014, and it's a very novel approach. And I've spoken to some of his patients. I've been out and done intensives within America and helped him, and it's pretty phenomenal. Dale's approach and when he came on, because one of the things we were talking about is if someone has early cognitive decline, what can be done? And it's not just one thing, it's multiple things. But one of the things that Dale talks about, amongst many others, is reducing sugar intake, right? Talks about insulin resistance in the brain and how important it can be. And I've seen that with patients before, how it can literally have a marked improvement in cognition, but then you've got the problem of compliance. Right? You can know, you know, someone might listen to the podcast with me and Dale and then go to their mum and their carers and say, hey, listen, we need to cut sugar, but it may be very hard to do it. And I said to Dale, the problem is a lot of people, a lot of family members won't deem it.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (51:15)

They're like, no, that's, you know, don't deprive them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (51:18)

Exactly. Right. And, you know, I guess everyone has got the right to make a decision for their life that they think is the best thing. So for someone, it might be, yeah, mum hasn't got much time left, or dad hasn't got much time left. Why not let them enjoy it for the final few months? Okay. And I have, I have a lot of sympathy with that. But what Dale was saying is that for a lot of people, he said, he said it comes down to the societal education piece where you would naturally, perhaps not want to give someone in a certain medical condition a cigarette. You kind of go, listen, yeah, hey, you've got cancer here, you got lung cancer here, don't smoke. Right? We don't see it the same way with sugar.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (51:57)

We don't see it the same way.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (51:58)

Which is a problem.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (51:59)

Yeah. Yes, exactly. And it's going back to, why do we need to get food addiction recognized as an official condition? I think it legitimizes then the harms it. The harms it can do. And also then you wouldn't be able to serve ultra processed food in schools or hospitals. So we don't. Now, there was a time, wasn't there, when you. I remember when my granddad was in hospital, you could have a bottle of Guinness or something. It wasn't banned. Well, now, you wouldn't ever see people drinking or smoking in hospital, but if you look at what people are eating and what's in the vending machines and also what's been sold in the foyers of hospitals, you know, to people like me that really know the harms, on a very personal level, it's it's shocking the nutrition in hospitals and schools.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (52:54)

Let's get super practical. Jen.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (52:56)

Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (52:58)

How might somebody who's listening to this get an idea of whether they have a problematic relationship with food? Are there any symptoms, signs or questions they can ask themselves that would help them identify that? This episode is sponsored by Sleep Reset. Now, many people struggling with sleep feel stuck between two options. Take sleeping pills or keep suffering through bad nights. What most people don't realize is that there's actually a clinically proven treatment for insomnia that does not involve medication. Cbti, which stands for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia, which helps retrain your brain and body to sleep naturally. Sleep Reset is a virtual sleep clinic that delivers a personalized program based on CBTI that helps you rebuild healthy sleep patterns step by step. Instead of just tracking your sleep, it gives you a personalized sleep schedule, daily guidance and support from real sleep clinicians who specialize in insomnia. Think of it like having access to a sleep clinic without leaving your home. For my listeners, Sleep Reset is offering a free seven day trial. All you have to do is go to thesleepreset.com to start your first week of real clinician designed insomnia treatment tonight. Today's episode is sponsored by Boncharge. Now, I've been using Boncharge wellness products for over five years. From red light therapy to infrared sauna blankets to blue light glasses, Bont charge make it really easy to get healthy while staying at home. One of my favorites is their infrared PEMF mat. It uses pulsed electromagnetic field technology to send gentle magnetic energy into the body and helps me feel more grounded and relaxed. Now, I personally like using this mat in the evenings whilst reading or relaxing or meditating, basically to help switch me off before bed. If you're looking to take charge of your health at home, I highly recommend you consider adding the infrared PEMF mat into your daily routine. Bon Charge are giving my audience 20% off all their products. All you have to do is go to boncharge.com and use the code livemore to save 20%. That's B O N C-H A R-E.com and use codes livemore to save 20%. How might somebody who's listening to this get an idea of whether they have a problematic relationship with food? Are there any symptoms, signs or questions they can ask themselves that would help them identify that?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (56:10)

Yes. So what we did is, is we took the six symptoms that the WHO used to define substance use disorder. We've made them into A little screening questionnaire called Craved. So I love an acronym. So Craved is the six symptoms that you'd look out for for any substance use disorder. But as we go through them, I think you and everybody else will see how well these can actually apply to people's behavior with food. So if you play along and, you know, count up, people who are listening can say, well, how many of these would you feel would apply to you? And three or more is the cutoff in the ICD criteria. Three or more of these symptoms would be the cutoff. Not for diagnosis, obviously, because it's not a diagnosis. But this would indicate that maybe you've got some addictive like symptoms in relation to your food behaviour. So C is obviously for cravings and compulsions.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (57:13)

So does someone listening have a craving or compulsion for a certain food, for

Dr. Jenn Unwin (57:17)

certain foods that feels so strong that, you know, you struggle to resist it or you, you can't resist it? Okay, yeah. So I think we can all recognize that R stands for reaching for more. And this gets at the idea that we all understand tolerance. We all understand it in relation to alcohol, don't we? So if you have a one drink, you might feel a little bit of an effect. If you have one drink every night, after a while you're not going to feel so much of an effect from that. So you might then start having two glasses of wine a night to get. So you need more and more to get the same effect. So that's what R stands for, reaching for more. So you might, you know, it might have been a couple of biscuits, but now once you've opened the biscuits, it ends up being half a packet or a whole packet. So needing more and more to feel kind of the feeling that you were satiated, you were hoping to sort of feel calm or whatever it is. A is for activities neglected. And this gets at the idea that when people start getting addicted to substances, it sort of starts to fill up their whole lives. So they stop thinking so much about family, they stop thinking about hobbies, they stop thinking about doing while at work.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (58:32)

It becomes all encompassing in their minds.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (58:34)

Encompassing. And other things sort of, you know, closing down. So is, is that happening?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (58:39)

Can I just ask Jen there? When I was reading out some of the comments before the people left on that YouTube video, that second comment I read out to you was, I used to lie to my wife and secretly buy ice cream with cash so she couldn't track it. Does that doesn't quite qualify for A for activities neglected, does it?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (59:00)

It kind of does because that's going to affect your relationship with a wife. This kind of secrecy.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (59:05)

Yeah. Because secrecy isn't. You don't really want to be lying to your spouse. Spouse. Your partner, totally honest with you. That's not a great position to be in.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (59:15)

That's a great place to start. Is it? So. So, yeah, that would definitely count. And you're kind of. Yeah, you'll. It would be that preoccupation where, you know, presumably that person is, you know, even more. They're perhaps having a conversation with their spouse thinking, right, when can I sneak off? I mean, I can remember doing this thinking, when can I. When can I have half an hour so I can drive to view this. I literally did this drive to view cinema and get a Ben and Jerry's ice cream, because that's what I really, really want right now. And I sit in the car and eat it and then drive home and pretend that I've been to the post office or something.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (59:49)

Yeah. Wow.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (59:49)

Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (59:50)

Jenna, what's so interesting is if you did that with anything else, like alcohol or cocaine, Right. People would naturally go, you've really got a problem. You've got a problem here.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (60:02)

Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (60:02)

Right. When you're lying to your husband, you're nipping out the house.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (60:06)

Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (60:07)

You're shooting up with your drug of choice.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (60:09)

In the car.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (60:10)

In the car. And then you get back and you are dishonest about where you've been. Right.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (60:16)

Because you feel so ashamed, and you know it's out of control, so you don't want to talk about it. Because also, the other thing is that the addiction have to put it into words, really. It wants you to keep getting the substance, so it doesn't want you to talk about it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (60:34)

Yeah. Okay, so we've got cravings that feel so strong that you can't resist.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (60:40)

Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (60:41)

R is reaching for more. Reaching for more.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (60:43)

Tolerance. The idea of tolerance.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (60:45)

Okay. And A is, you know, activities neglected. Okay. I reckon already on those three, There'll be people listening right now, if you're watching it on YouTube, guys, let us know in the comments where you're up to with this. Okay? What about ved?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (60:58)

So V is for volume. And this is losing control of the amount, which is this thing we said, one's too many. A thousand is never enough. So maybe, you know, it's pizza night with the kids, and you say, right, I'm just gonna have one slice because I'm on a diet this week. One slice with salad. And then it can't be one slice because you end up wanting two, three slices the kids have gone to bed, you have the leftovers, you lose control of the volume. So V is for volume, E. E is for exclusion. And this is the idea of withdrawal symptoms which everybody will recognize in terms of any other addiction. We know that one of the key problems of quitting any addictive substances that you get withdrawal symptoms. So for example, I quit caffeine a few years ago. I suffered quite badly with withdrawal symptoms that were clearly physiological. Same for alcohol. We know people get withdrawal symptoms nicotine. So with sugar and ultra processed foods, you can get sort of hypo, sort of shaky feelings, you can get headaches, you can get gastrointestinal problems, sleep problems, mood problems. Everybody recognizes that people can be grumpy. As you know, they market foods, don't they, saying, you know, you're very grumpy, so you ought to have a chocolate bar. I saw an advert like that recently.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (62:20)

It's all there. It's hiding in plain sight, basically, the problematic relationship, isn't it?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (62:25)

They're actually marketing it as a cure for the withdrawal symptom that it caused. Yeah. So. Yeah. So ease for an exclusion. So if you get withdrawal symptoms when you try and quit, and of course this is one reason, like you were saying, people can't stay abstinent and it's because oftentimes they haven't even got through the proper sort of physiological withdrawal phase because it's awful.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (62:49)

How long does it typically take for people, would you say?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (62:51)

Typically, I would say maybe seven, six, seven, eight days for the sort of physiological withdrawal. Obviously after that you still get cravings to some extent, but you shouldn't, your physiology should be.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (63:02)

So it's quite a bit of time. You have to be ready before you go through this.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (63:05)

You have to be prepared to go

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (63:06)

through that sort of valley.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (63:08)

But if you want to do it cold turkey, we're gonna probably come on to talking about how people might shift towards being more abstinent. You don't have to do it cold turkey. That's just the way that I like to do things.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (63:20)

Okay, so V for volume, E for exclusion. And the wood also, E is.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (63:25)

This is the big one really. And it's the defining characteristic of any addiction. It's continued use despite damage. So even if, you know. So for example, cigarettes, everybody knows they're bad for you and there's a horrible picture on the thing even. So you're going to smoke that cigarette.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (63:47)

Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (63:47)

So it's the same with, with sugar and oxy processed foods. Maybe you've got a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. You know, maybe you, you know, you're overweight and sort of metabolically not healthy, you'd rather, you know, be losing weight even though you've maybe depressed and you know that the way that you eat is affecting your mental health because you, you know, you feel that's the case. Even so you, you can't quit. You're, you're continuing to use these ultra processed foods and sugars to, to kind of feel better. So you're on that terrible treadmill. So yeah, despite knowing it's doing you harm, you struggling to quit.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (64:31)

I mean, I imagine anyone who's got a problematic relationship with any food will score on the D. Well, they'll definitely score on the D. Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (64:39)

Because they want to change.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (64:42)

Exactly. They're wanting to change, they're wanting to be healthier. And despite knowing the problems of that food, they can't stop eating it.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (64:48)

Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (64:49)

Okay, so did you score six out of six?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (64:52)

I've always scored six out of six.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (64:54)

So the maximum score is six.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (64:55)

The maximum score is six. Fine. Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (64:57)

So what if. So someone like you in the past would score six?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (65:03)

Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (65:04)

What if someone just scores a one on that? So go. Yeah. You know what, I sometimes have a craving for that food that I can't say anything about it, but you know, it doesn't affect the rest of my life. I don't reach them all. I don't have a loss of control on volume. Do you know what I mean?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (65:22)

So that would be amazing. One or two.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (65:24)

It's sort of normal.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (65:25)

That's kind of normal. And I would say great. Just be, be careful, be aware that these, these foods, you know, can be doing harm to the brain. You know, you don't want to have loads of them if you can. So I do know the occasional. But my mother in law in fact has, has biscuits in her cupboard that have been there about six years. So she can, she can take them or leave them. She'll have one. And,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (65:53)

and people like that. Cause they exist.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (65:56)

Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (65:58)

I'm taking this beyond you mother in law. Just for people who have a relationship with food that they can have it now and again.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (66:05)

Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (66:07)

The problem is I think sometimes they can't understand what it's like for people who don't have that.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (66:12)

Right, exactly. So she really struggled with what it was like to be me and that I couldn't. She. And she's a lovely cook as well. So she'd make me this amazing cheesecake which was my favorite thing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (66:25)

Fat sugar.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (66:25)

Yes. Bit of salt in the digestive It. Yeah, delicious. And I had to say, you know, I. It's amazing. I love it, but I just. I'm not gonna have any because if I have one slice, I'm gonna eat half the thing. And it's taken her a long time to really see that that can be. She intellectually understands it, but I think people have to really take the leap to be able to say, yeah, I understand, even though that isn't my problem. You know, that if somebody tells you, I'm trying to quit sugar, please support me, then please support them. Because it is really, really a hard thing to do. Exactly. Like alcohol. So if you had a friend that was quitting alcohol, you wouldn't take them to the pub or bake them, bring them a special bottle of whiskey. Cause it was their birthday, you'd encourage them. You'd say, let's go a walk, you know, I've made you a nice meal. You know, well done, you. You'd really encourage them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (67:22)

Yeah. We're getting into possible strategies that people can use. And I want to be mindful of the fact that not everyone listening is going to identify full on six out of six.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (67:35)

No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (67:36)

Right. Some are going to be, you know, at three, which still qualifies, I guess,

Dr. Jenn Unwin (67:40)

two or so three, you know, maybe so it's a bit more like with sort of saying quotes, harmful user. You know, maybe there are times or vulnerabilities when you're eating too many of those kinds of foods.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (67:54)

Or could it be for some people, like, I certainly would recognize this myself. You know, if you're super stressed or there's stuff going on or one of your family members isn't. Well, you might go to these things, these foods as, you know, just a coping mechanism, basically.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (68:14)

Yeah. David's more in this category as well.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (68:15)

For people who don't know David is your husband, Dr. David Unwin, who was on the podcast a few months ago now, very popular episode, talking about all his work with low carb diets, reversing type 2 diabetes and metabolic dysfunction. So continue. Just in case people haven't heard that one.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (68:31)

Yes. So he was definitely a harmful user. He did develop type 2 diabetes. And that was because he did, you know, he did have a sweet tooth. He did love all those foods. But he wasn't. He could come back from holiday and just go, right, I'm having a healthy week. And just. That was fine. He could do that very easily. He could sort of reset and not eat those foods. Whereas I would come back from holiday and if we'd kind of Overindulge on those kinds of foods, I would find it really, really hard to sort of pull back. You know, the lid was off, if you like. So.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (69:03)

So you identify as a food addict.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (69:05)

Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (69:05)

And David does not.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (69:06)

He does not.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (69:07)

Okay, that's really interesting.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (69:08)

Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (69:09)

Okay, so let's think about these practical strategies. You mentioned already that cold turkey is one option, but it's not the only option. So if someone has basically identified with several of those on the craved questionnaire, they've gone, you know, I think I've got a problematic relationship with certain foods some of the time. How do you start advising them if they want to start changing that? Basically, yeah.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (69:34)

So number one is we talked right at the beginning about this lighthouse about, well, why would you want to change? Because it's actually going to be quite hard. So what's your guiding light? What's going to really keep you going when the cravings come? What's your reason for wanting to change your relationship with foods? You know, and kind of, you know, just saying, oh, I want to lose weight isn't. Isn't a good enough reason, you know, what would be better if you lost weight? What would be different about your life? You know, why do you want to do this? And what's that sort of motivation? So it might be to do with, you know, your kids being able to play with the kids or, you know, staying alive long enough to see the kids do certain things. You maybe want to be an example to the. To the kids, but finding some. Some real motivation is. Is. Is probably step one.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (70:22)

Okay.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (70:24)

Step two is being totally honest, brutally honest about the drug foods, again, in quotes. So which, which foods occupy your mind? Might you have a secret stash or often food adults have secret stashes of their favorite things because they don't want to run out. You know, what are those things? You know, what are you kind of literally thinking it's gonna be really hard to live without? It's nearly always the things. David has lots of patients who say, I literally can't live without. I couldn't live without bread. You know, lots of people, it's not sweet things always. It can be savory things as well. And bread is such a common one, actually. So if there are foods like that that you're saying, I couldn't live without, probably that's something to think about. And I would make an honest list of all the. The foods that you're having where the relationship is that one of loss of control, cravings, needing more and more, losing control of the amount Continuing to have them even though you know they're doing you harm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (71:33)

Yeah. I've heard you say that. You often ask people to write down a list you know, I lose control over and then actually write down those things.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (71:43)

Write them down.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (71:44)

There's something powerful about writing something down, isn't it? Then you can think about it and go, yeah, yeah. But I think, well, we know there's incredible benefits to journaling. I think one of the benefits is that you see it in front of you. You've had to take it out of your brain. Take it down, put it down, put it down. You see it back. It kind of makes it real, I think, in a way that just thinking about things often doesn't.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (72:05)

Yes. No, absolutely. The other thing I didn't mention about when our brain's in that state of high dopamine and that sort of reward centers flowing, another thing that happens is it actually cuts us off from our frontal lobes. And again, they think this is probably an evolutionary thing, that when you were driven to go and hunt, you had to, in a way, not think about it too much because it's dangerous. So you may have decided, oh, we won't bother today. No, you needed to be really driven. So our frontal lobes are a bit cut off. So in the moment of the cravings and the eating, and our frontal lobes aren't really. So you can't think your way out of addiction. You have to sort of plan your way out. So. And one way is to be writing things down, to be really clear and to be making a plan, because then you've. You've sort of. You've put your frontal lobes on. On the paper, if you like. And you've done that at a time when your brain's working properly. Once you're in the food, it's really hard to stop that behavior when you're on the Runway. So. Yeah. So write it down.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (73:18)

I think you said that one of the things you asked people to write down is, I know I'm in trouble when.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (73:23)

Oh, yes, that's such a good one.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (73:24)

I think that's such a great piece of advice.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (73:26)

Yes, I know I'm in trouble when and what? That's the moment before you know you're gonna get on that Runway. So, for example, my ones would be, I know I'm in trouble when I'm randomly open in kitchen doors, cupboard doors in the kitchen. I don't know if you ever do that and you're not even hungry, especially when you kind of. I'm just going to have a Look what's in here.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (73:49)

And does anyone not do that?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (73:51)

If you're unlucky, there are things in there you probably shouldn't be having. So another, another thing that we'll talk about is that you can really engineer your own environment to support your recovery. But. Oh, just I'm looking in there and of course, if there was chocolate in there and I was, you know, I'd had a long day or something stressful going on, or I was hungry, angry, lonely, tired, bored, I, I might succumb if I saw it because then the minute I see it, the brain, the dopamine's already going on. The visual cues.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (74:22)

Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (74:22)

And that's how the, of course, that's how the marketing works for all these, you know, companies that have their branding, you know, the. Well, we won't mention any, but everybody knows the branding for the, the big companies. And it's almost like the minute you see that branding or that that's why they advertise in the evening on the television, because we're all vulnerable and willpower's gone. Willpower's absolutely gone. We're sitting watching the telly, get onto whoever delivers the.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (74:50)

Well, that of course has made it hard because you don't even need to go out anymore and go. And you can get it delivered to while she's still on sofa watching. Which of course for people who are prone to that makes it really difficult, this idea of writing down, I know I'm in trouble when. And as you said for you, when I'm randomly opening cupboards in the kitchen looking for something, which of course may not be physical hunger, it's more likely to be emotional hunger. Reminds me of something. Literally earlier this week, a chap called Nir Eyal was in the studio. He's an author. His latest book is called Beyond Belief. And in that book and in our podcast together, he shared how he was trying to lose weight for years. And he said every diet worked when I was on it. Yes, okay. But he didn't stay on many of them for long. And he explains what changed. But one of the tactics he spoke about, beyond food, this is just for making change in life, is something called mental contrasting. And a lot of people only imagine best case scenarios. Right. So on January 1st, oh, you know, I'm going to eat well this year and go to the gym. Like you're just imagining best case scenario. And he was talking and I think it's very similar to your exercise about this idea that when he started to get really good with his choices or he was making better choices for his goal. He was also planning what happens when I'm out for dinner and someone offers me chocolate cake. Cause I know I'm going to be tempted. So I guess he was calling this mental contrasting. But it's the same kind of approach, isn't it?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (76:30)

You have to rehearse it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (76:31)

You have to plan when your frontal cortex, your rational brain is online, not when it's offline. And maybe you've had a couple of glasses of wine and you're like, yeah, yeah, go on, I'll have it.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (76:40)

Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (76:40)

And so let's say someone wants. Because I think peer pressure.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (76:45)

Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (76:46)

Is really hard. Right. And Jen, you've worked with so many patients and clients to help them through this. Right? So if someone says, look, when I'm left to my own devices, I'm pretty good at home. But when I'm out in their own environment or at work, when it's someone's birthday and they bring the quality street and all the home baked cakes or whatever, and people come around and say, oh, it's fine, it's just one right. One's not gonna do you any harm. What advice do you have for that individual? How can they handle that scenario?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (77:17)

Yeah, it's really hard for people in the beginning because you're kind of trying to change how people see you to some extent, aren't you? And that, you know, we know, we

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (77:27)

don't like how you see yourself and

Dr. Jenn Unwin (77:28)

how you see yourself and how to have those sort of difficult conversations. And I think it is, again, as we were saying at the beginning, it's a very individual thing. So people need to work out what would they be comfortable saying. So we sometimes, you know, give them a few examples or what's wonderful in a group, of course, is you can say, you know, what people would say. Oh God, I find it really hard when Jane at work, who you know is a fantastic baker, and she'll bring in the cupcakes and we're gonna say to the group, you know, what, what have, how have you handled that? And how have you handled that? And we get some examples when you

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (78:02)

say the groups, you're not talking about at work with your colleagues, you're talking about in the sort of in a

Dr. Jenn Unwin (78:06)

treatment group, a food addiction group or a support group. You know, it can be really good to get other people's advice on that. So we would often say, well, I would sort of say how it is, I'd handled it. And some, they'd get some other ideas and then they say well, maybe I could do this. And we had one lady, actually, who had a group of friends. They always went out for coffee and a cake. It was kind of part of her important part of her week. And she was like, how am I going to handle this? And then she rehearsed it with her husband. Like, you know what she was going to say? She was going to say, you know, I'm really trying to look after my health. You know, I'm going to come for coffee. I love being with you guys, but, you know, I'm not gonna have the cake. And I really hope you can all support me because, you know, this is so important to me, so. But it has to come from that person, doesn't it? They have to feel that that's something they really could say. But it's great. It is great to rehearse it, to sort of, you know, say it to a loved one, that that's what you're gonna do. So that you're not. You don't find yourself in that situation. And you haven't got a script almost. You haven't got a sounds like that's what he was saying, that he would. He would rehearse what he was going

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (79:12)

to say, and I would just add to that. You know, if you inadvertently must fail, first of all, it's not failure, right? Each time you do that, it's a learning process.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (79:20)

Never failure, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (79:21)

But let's say you're trying to cut back on sugar or certain, you know, foods that you have a problematic relationship, like, let's say, cake, you're trying not to have. If you do succumb and have it, don't feel bad about it. Try, I guess, try and analyze what

Dr. Jenn Unwin (79:38)

happened, exactly what led up to it, you know, background factors. And then what would you do differently next time? What have you learned? Because generally, yeah, people are a bit disappointed in themselves, and they often don't feel so well. If they've been off the sugars for a while and then they have it, they usually feel pretty rubbish, actually. So they're able to say, well, you know, I've learned I don't feel so great when I do that. Often it's sort of things like traveling or, you know, they're stuck somewhere without, you know, they're on a train, there's nothing else to eat that you can buy that they want to eat. That's sort of from the food car. So, you know, they might think, well, another time I'm going to take stuff with me. And that's. That's a Great learning point. So next time. And then also the other thing is that if you, if you have a slip up, just get back on track as fast as you can. Don't let it slide because you, like you say self criticizing or thinking, I'm hopeless, I'll never do it. You know, it's all too hard. Just, just learn from it and get, get back on track. It's like riding a bike. You just have to get back on.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (80:40)

One thing I think a lot about Jen is how skills that we learn in one area of life are transferable to so many other areas. And I think there's a, there's real relevance to what you're just talking about there, right? So let's say you're someone and you know, frankly, I, I've seen this thousands of times over my career and I've got friends who struggle with this, right? So this is so, so common. But they struggle to assert themselves and speak up for themselves in particular environments. So let's say you have a problematic relationship with cakes or desserts. When you're out with your friends, whatever, and you struggle, you don't want to let people down. What will they think? You know, all your buddies, everyone else is having it, everyone's having one. I thought, I'm gonna be the weird one if I don't have it. They're all going to be thinking, oh God, look at him, or whatever, right? Which, which is very, very real. If you can learn the skill over time, maybe you'll get it wrong a few times of being able to speak up for yourself. And it said, hey guys, listen, you guys, go for your life. Enjoy it, have it. I'm just not eating like that anymore. A. You've got a problem. Well, one of the problems is that when you, you definitely see this with alcohol, but I've seen this with my mates for, with sugar. You or some of my mates, I should say. It almost feels like a criticism of them. They often take it as a critique of them because you, whatever. Deciding not to drink or not having a dessert in some ways is a mirror back onto them. Yes, only if they've got a problematic relationship. Because if they don't, it's like, why the hell does it matter?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (82:20)

Why do they care?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (82:21)

Hey, listen, I'm going to enjoy my chocolate cake. If you don't want it and you don't want to have it, I'm still gonna enjoy, right? But going back to my point is if you're someone who struggles and you learn how to speak up for yourself, that won't just help you with that food, that will help you in every other aspect of your life.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (82:41)

Absolutely. Because you're putting yourself first.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (82:46)

Yeah. You could even look at it as go, oh my God, it's so unlucky that I've got this. And yes, of course, in the modern food environment it is unlucky. If you have that sort of relationship with food, it's not ideal, but you can also turn it into a real strength if you can learn the skills to get through. Can transform your life in so many other ways.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (83:04)

And you're right, the sugar pushers will come out of the woodwork when you try and change your behavior. Some people will try and push back, but it is usually because you're making them feel uncomfortable because they've got a problem.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (83:19)

Okay, so that's social settings. What's your take on cold turkey versus gradual?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (83:25)

Right. There's many roads to the same destination and this has, it has to be individual because you've got to feel that's the right, you know, the right way for you. So some people choose to sort of slowly cut down or, or to maybe eliminate perhaps the, the worst offending food. You know, they might decide to sort of cut things out bit by bit now. And that can work. It can obviously take a bit longer and it can be for people that are very kind of end stage, let's say. I don't think it would have worked for me because there would still be. You're still having, in a sense, some of the substance, aren't you still having maybe other things with sugars or refined carbohydrates. So that can sort of pull you back in. So there's pros and cons to that. There's obviously pros and cons to going cold turkey because, well, it can be. It's a bit of a shock to the system and you can feel pretty rough for, as we've said, about a week. The other thing is that anybody on medication of diabetes or blood pressure or other medications shouldn't do that without talking to their healthcare provider. Because if your blood sugar goes down and you're on, say, blood sugar lowering medications, we don't want anybody coming to any harm or, you know, your blood pressure can sort of reduce as well. So anyone who's on medication probably shouldn't go cold turkey without. Unless they've got proper supervision for their medications. A lot of those of us with sort of addiction problems have got very black and white brains. You know, it's kind of yes or no, it's black or white. So for me, cold turkey felt like once I'd understood the. Once I'd got to the point of understanding that it was an addiction and that these were the problematic things, then it, it just made sense to me. Right. Okay. That was the right thing to do, just to quit completely and then deal with the consequences, if you like. So there's a sort of physiological withdrawal and then there's the sort of. You can get sort of cravings for. For a while afterwards. And the other thing is that we've talked a lot about food, but like any other addiction recovery program, it isn't just about the food. As, as, as, you know, because you've spoken to so many people about sort of, you know, this, this same sort of topic, that it has to be beyond the food as well. You have to understand if you've been using food for comfort, to fill a hole, to sort of, you know, deal with difficult memories or whatever, you have to find a way, another way to, to deal with those things, because otherwise you're going to get drawn back in to the food or some other substance at some time. So it's all about advocating for yourself. As you said, you know, self care on many levels. So I've had to learn. I was an exercise hater particular school, mostly because I was overweight, mostly because I was addicted to sugar. But I've come to love it. I've come to love exercising, to feel the mental benefits of it and the physical benefits. I have had to sort of use techniques like yoga and these kinds of things to sort of feel calmer. I have hobbies that are very calming, like knitting and crochet that I can do to sort of keep away from the food as something else to think about, you know. So people have to think beyond, beyond the food as well.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (87:06)

Yeah, I guess the, the point that comes to mind there is, I think, a really empowering message for people from your story, Jen, and your husband David's story when he was on the podcast a few months ago. It really seems as though both of you have come into a new lease of life with your health and frankly, your lives in your 50s and 60s.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (87:37)

Yep.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (87:39)

And I just want to highlight that because many people feel it's too late for them to change. When you just said there that you used to hate exercise and you think it's primarily because you were overweight, primarily because you were addicted to sugar.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (87:52)

Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (87:53)

There will be so many people listening who also recognize that and have told themselves a story that exercise is not for them, but actually it Wasn't that exercise wasn't for them. It was in the state in which they were in, they were unable to enjoy moving their bodies.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (88:11)

Correct.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (88:11)

But if you can gain some degree of mastery over your food environment, recognize it as an addiction, if it is an addiction for you, take certain steps to change things. Well, you never know. Like David said to me. How old's David now? Is he 67?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (88:29)

67.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (88:30)

67, yeah. He'd tell me, he's like, he's probably the fittest he's ever been. He looks good, he feels good, he's cognitively sharp, he's running faster than he's run before. This is a very, very empowering message for people. So if anyone feels it's too late and actually, oh, they've had problems with sugar their whole life. You, Jen, and your husband David, I think, are shining examples that you can change at any time.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (88:57)

You just start to feel once you've quit all of that stuff, you weirdly start to want to move and you start to feel more energetic. And we've seen that in many, many of David's patients as well. It wasn't about getting them to take more exercise to lose weight. Once they'd get control of the food, they naturally lost weight. And then we didn't even say go and exercise. They'd come back and say, oh, I've joined, you know, I've joined the gym. Or I'm walking every evening after my meal. Or they just feel more like moving because their mitochondria are working. Your brain's working. You just feel like more like sort of exercising.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (89:31)

What was his name? Was it Chris, David's patient, who I spoke to as part of my Channel 4 show that came out in January. Live well with a drug free doctor. I remember chatting to Chris and he also, when he was, you know. Cause he showed me all these images of, you know, food was his. His identity. Yeah, he was. All the images showed me he was really overweight and there was always food around and he was having a great time with his food. Yeah. And you know, he was just telling me how he walks every day now. Loads. He goes to the gym several times a week. He boxes.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (90:05)

Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (90:05)

Stuff that he never used to do. So I think this is also another unrecognized benefit of dealing with this. You actually get so much vitality back when you start to tackle this, don't you?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (90:20)

Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (90:21)

And a vitality you perhaps have never experienced before.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (90:24)

Yeah, yeah. And for me, of course, it became a passion as well that other people should have this information, because it took me. So I'm a psychologist. I'm so embarrassed that it took me till I was like, until I was about 52 to put. Put it all together because I'd always wondered about why, you know, why I'm a psychologist. I can't control my behavior around food. It was kind of even more shameful and more embarrassing. But I'd always been trying to work it out. And eventually when I worked it out, I was like, ah, you know, other people need to know this because it makes such a difference. That piece of information that could it. Could it be an addictive problem? And then of course, we know that the treatment, the effective treatments for addiction is abstinence. And once you've. That's it. I mean, we could have done the podcast in like a minute. I could have just said that. Really, you have. If it's an addiction problem, abstinence is the treatment. And once I'd done. Once I'd had that aha moment, I was like, other people need to know this because that's not the general messaging around health and fitness.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (91:39)

Yeah. One thing that I guess is in your favor is that you and David did this together.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (91:47)

That has been amazing. And it has been this sort of evolving story where, you know, we found the sort of the low carbohydrate way of eating and then applied that to his patients to such amazing kind of results. But for somebody with food addiction, that can be, yes, eating in a low carbohydrate way can. Can be very, very, very good. But you need to understand the addiction piece because otherwise people slip. And this is what happened to me. I did really well on low carb. I lost a lot of weight. But then a bit like the guy you've had on who said, you know, it's really good when you're on it. There's all this kind of, you know, keto treats on there. Keto baking. You know, obviously I was going to get drawn back into that because I love baking. So I'd start baking with, you know, sweeteners and almond flour. And then that becomes problematic because you're going to get drawn into that, or we like nut butters and things like that. You can still have that relationship with things that seem kind of, in quotes, healthy. So I had to really understand, right. You know, that those kinds of foods, for me are addictive. So I just need to leave them to the side of my plate, literally, and just focus on eating real whole foods as nature intended.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (93:11)

If someone's listening, Jen, and I know There'll be many who are thinking, listen, the problem is, I try and do this, but my partner keeps certain foods in the house. Right. Which means that at some point I crack and end up eating those foods. I want to know what your advice is for that person. And then let's expand it out a little, because a lot of people will say, and interested, as your take on what this actually means as a psychologist, they'll go, yeah, but, you know, I need to keep sweets and sugars and chocolates in the house for the kids or the grandkids. So two scenarios there. One is that the partner is not playing ball, or they don't. Maybe, you know, I don't mean unintentionally. Maybe they just, like, they don't recognize how serious it is. And then children. So take them in whichever order you want.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (94:01)

Yes. So living in a household with other people who don't want to be abstinent. Yes, of course, that's a challenge. It's not insurmountable, but it does make it more difficult. Yeah. So I'm so lucky because we both eat kind of more or less the same, a little bit different, but more or less the same. And again, there are many possible answers. One is, yeah, to really have that conversation. If it's a partner that loves you, hopefully they want you to be healthy and well. So you have that conversation about, you know, I'm beginning to think about my problem in this way, and I really want to try and, you know, be abstinence from. From these foods, which are my problematic foods. Sometimes partners are willing to have a go themselves. You know, they may be interested themselves in seeing how that goes. Otherwise, it's a negotiation about, you know, can I have. This cupboard is my food, and you keep your food over here. Or sometimes we've had people buy their husbands, like, lock boxes and give them the key so they have their. If they want to be in chocolate and crisp, they have it in a locked box out of sight, so that the person knows they can't get into that box or that it's locked in a filing cabinet, something like that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (95:22)

When you hear that, it's pretty hard to not make the case. This is an addiction. Right. When you hear things like that. A locked box.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (95:31)

Yeah, yeah. That people have asked their husbands to keep it outside or only to eat it outside the home. So it's an individual kind of negotiation about what's possible really in the home. You know, as I say, having a cupboard. So the cupboard you open only has the things in that you Want to be eating or a shelf on the fridge that's your food. It is more difficult if you're seeing it all the time.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (95:55)

But Jen, just to bring up alcohol for a minute, I guess.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (95:59)

Yeah. Use the same analogy.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (96:01)

I use the analogy. And if you were recognized as an alcoholic and you were seeking help for

Dr. Jenn Unwin (96:09)

that, you'd hope that your partner didn't,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (96:11)

would not keep alcohol in the house,

Dr. Jenn Unwin (96:12)

sitting next to you on the sofa, having a drink while you're watching.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (96:16)

Yeah. But again, it goes back to that sort of theme that's been playing out throughout this conversation that we don't really recognize it, don't take it as seriously. Seriously. It's like, oh yeah, just a bit of sugar.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (96:27)

Incredibly serious. So you know it's going to kill you the same way as cigarettes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (96:32)

And yeah, I think that's the key point, isn't it? It's like, look, humans are hardwired to crave sugar as we've already touched on in our evolutionary past. If it was around, we might gorge on it and store a bit of fat to get us through four times when food wasn't around. But in the modern food environment, for most people, food is always around. So that so called winter never actually comes. Right. It's always summer. And so we know what are the problems today? Well, metabolic dysfunction is probably one of the driving factors for most chronic diseases. Heart attacks, strokes, many types of Alzheimer's and a large amount, maybe 40% of cancers are driven by metabolic dysfunction as well as other things. Right. But the consequences of not being able to get on top of your food intake for some people can be frankly life threatening and life shortening. So yeah, this is not a trivial matter. We're talking about having a bit of sugar. It's like, no, no, for some people this actually kills you.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (97:47)

Yeah. And if you've got a food addiction, you're seven times more likely to have type 2 diabetes, for example. So there've been studies done on and we know that the prevalence in the general population of food addiction using those sort of symptoms is 14%. Well, that's more than 6 million adults in the UK.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (98:08)

14%.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (98:09)

14%. So it's very similar to alcohol.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (98:13)

Wow.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (98:14)

As a problematic thing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (98:15)

So it's kind of what, one in six? One in seven. So in a. Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (98:20)

And it's the same in kids and adolescents. It's terrifying. You know those, those kids have been brought up in this food environment. You know, when we were brought up, it wasn't quite as it is today.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (98:32)

Even Halloween. Right. When I was a kid. It wasn't that big a thing.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (98:36)

No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (98:37)

Somewhere, I think in the last 10 years, it's kind of from America. It feels like it's accelerated into being like the most ridiculous sugar fest.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (98:47)

Every celebration has become a ridiculous sugar fest, hasn't it? Valentine's, Mother's Day, Easter, Christmas.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (98:54)

Yeah. Once Christmas is done, it's like, well, let's start getting people ready for the next celebration.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (98:58)

We've been had. Really? Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (99:00)

Once you see it, it's everywhere.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (99:02)

Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (99:02)

You're being marketed this stuff all the time.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (99:05)

The garage. Someone who works in this space had a clicker and she thought, right, I'm gonna see how many times a day I'm queued to kind of eat these foods. And they're everywhere. So you're gonna fill up your car. You know, you have to walk a gauntlet, an absolute gauntlet of snack food just to pay. Pay the bill. There's advertising hoardings. It's on the television. It's on the Scrolling on the phone. So we're being cued. Cued. Cued.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (99:35)

And as you say, you're surprised that anyone manages as much as anybody manage. And I think we want to empower people to say, listen, it's not your fault.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (99:44)

It's okay to fight back.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (99:46)

It's difficult. But also, what are you going to do? You have to do something.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (99:52)

And there are communities of people that. That are doing it. You have to sort of find your tribe to some extent. It's really important that, you know, you wouldn't expect someone with an alcohol problem to kind of go it alone. They would have a support group or a counselor or somebody supporting them. And I think, you know, we. It's really important that people kind of find their little. Little support group or they have somebody who. Who's really with them on this. So if it's not going to be your partner, you know, try and find somebody else or a community to sort of get mesh. We didn't talk about kids. Do you want to go back to that?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (100:27)

We can do. Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (100:29)

Part two of the question, because that's really difficult as well. And everybody thinks, oh, this, you know, they're so cute, they should let them have a treat. And, you know, I was guilty of this because I didn't work this out till. Yeah, I was maybe 52. So obviously I raised my kids pretty heavily on the carbohydrate side because that's. That's what. And we used to have carbohydrate corner, which had the biscuits in for the kids. To go and get so.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (100:53)

So many people have sweet drawers, don't they?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (100:54)

Oh, yeah. I apologize to them about it. I'm sorry about it. But fortunately they all eat like we do now.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (101:00)

So they're in their 20s, aren't they? I think.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (101:03)

Yeah. 20s and 30s and they're all. Yeah, really.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (101:07)

David was saying to me that some of that drive was vanity as well. They realized that actually they felt better, they looked better. They felt better and looked better and felt lean and had six packs good skin when they ate that way. When they ate in that sort of low carbohydrate way that you and David eats.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (101:21)

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (101:21)

So I think for some people, vanity is a motivating factor, feedback, isn't it?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (101:26)

You know, it's important. We've got a granddaughter, she's 14 now, and whenever she eats salt, processed food or sugar, she just breaks. She just breaks out. So she just knows. She just knows not to do it. Yeah. So it's difficult with the kids, but I think, you know, you're the adults, you're in charge of the home environment.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (101:45)

Yeah. One of the things I figured out early on in my career that was really helpful for previous patients was control the environment. You can control. Don't use your willpower in your house because you're gonna have to use it up when you fill up petrol, when you go to the news agents, when you go and get your coffee and you're walking past the pan au chocolates that are waving at you. Right. You're gonna have to use your willpower. There's some people, there is a school of thought, they push back and they say, well, that's not dealing with the relationship with foods. They'll say that you should be able to get to a point where you can have it there and resist. And it's not that I necessarily disagree with that. I just think that you're just making life harder for yourself if you're having those foods there. Because one evening you are going to be tired, stressed, lonely, you will have had a bad day. And if it's there and you're in, you know, opening the cupboards, looking for something and there's chocolate there, you're probably gonna have it.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (102:48)

I'm totally with you on that. We have to resist it all day long. Let's, you know, keep it safe at home. I don't want to eat it, so I'm not gonna have it at home because it, you know, and that's assuming

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (102:56)

you made the choice that you don't want to eat it. If you want to eat it and have it at home. Like we're not saying don't have it. We're assuming that you're trying to change your relationship with those foods.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (103:05)

Don't put it in the basket. That's the point. That's the point at which the decision is made.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (103:09)

In the supermarket, what do you do with your grandkids?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (103:13)

They're just so used to eating the way that we eat. So it's sort of non food treats. So we do other things with them. So Easter, we'll do other activity, play games or, you know, walk up mountains or do something else.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (103:28)

Yeah, it's hard. We've done the same thing. Right. And it is hard because you are basically resisting the prevailing tide of culture.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (103:37)

Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (103:38)

And it is much harder work and you need time and energy and of course not everyone has that. And so I do recognize that. But I guess we're sharing this to not make people feel bad, to show what might be possible and how there is a way to fight back against the food industry.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (103:57)

We've been there. We've, you know, that was my story. And we've tried to do something different and it is possible to do that. And it's not been easy at times, but that doesn't mean it's not worth trying to persist and just do a little bit better every day.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (104:19)

If someone's listening, Jen, and they want to get involved with the community, maybe they don't have friends or family who are supportive, but they're really committed to. Is there a way they can get in touch with you or your groups and if so, how? I know you have the book Fork in the Roads.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (104:34)

Fork in the Roads.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (104:34)

It's a great resource.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (104:35)

Yeah. I wrote in Lockdown and it was sort of meant to be. Yeah. For people that are probably listening to this conversation, it was for people like me who'd had these sort of lifelong struggles. It explains all about food addiction and the symptoms and some of the science of it. And David's done the forward, but then it's also like, you know, what to eat and how to deal with these social situations that we all get ourselves in and what other things you might want to think about in your life. But it's a very little book. And all the proceeds go to the charity, the collaborative health community that I work with and that are with, you know, campaigning and doing research on food addiction. And, you know, if you've got a partner or a member of the family that doesn't get it, read the book yourself. But then hand it over to them because it's, it's a quick read and it explains the problem to them in sort of simple terms. So, yeah, so that's, that's one thing to. Yeah. So the collaborative health community, you can look on our website, we've got information and resources for, for professionals. And we're just about to launch some training for healthcare professionals so that they can understand how to recognize food addiction in the clinic and what to do about it. And also we've got information for the public and some more resources that people can look at.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (105:59)

You have practiced as a clinical psychologist for over 30 years, I believe, and I've heard you talk before about the role of hope in health care. Why, in your opinion, is it so important to have hope?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (106:16)

So, yes, hope was my passion really, before I got into all of this space about food addiction and my doctorate on the role of hope in healthcare. Hope is about having a sense of a possible better future. It's about believing that you can see the steps to that future and believing that you've got the motivation to take those steps or the. Yeah, you've got the, you're going to be able to take those small steps. And when people have that sense of hope, it has such a massive impact on how they cope with everything in life, really. And even about, you know, things like the level of pain they experience or the amount of medication that they take, or even. It's even been linked with longevity to have that, that sense of moving towards a preferred future. And I think often in, in healthcare settings, people are. So they've lost hope, really.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (107:35)

Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (107:35)

And they've, they've, they've, they've come. It's almost like a sort of, you know, particularly a lot of people that come to see us. It's like you're the last house on the street, really. They've, you know, they've, they've tried everything and they've sort of become very hopeless. So it's very important as healthcare practitioners that we're able to instill that sense that, you know, they can get to it, they can get to a better place and they've got the, the wherewithal to do that. You were talking about sort of, you know. You know, often people that we see are very competent in many walks of their lives. They've got successful careers or, you know, they've, they've got a lovely family, but they, they just, there's this one area that they can't crack. Like in this case, we're talking about the food and they've sort of lost. Lost hope there. It's about trying to give people the hope and the confidence that they can actually take the steps. You know, they've got that within them to take the steps to this better future. And, you know, not that it's all gonna be plain sailing, but, you know, that they will get there in the end with, you know, with some care and support. And often all you're trying to do is uncover that for people. You know, like for Chris that you spoke to, it was only a matter of showing him that there was a way.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (108:55)

Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (108:56)

That he could recover his health, which he, at that point probably could barely believe, that he would end up on no medication and going to the gym every day.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (109:05)

Well, I think, Jen, what you clearly do with this work and what you've been doing for many years to try and raise awareness of food addiction, sugar addiction, UPF addiction, that this is a problem that many people are struggling with, that we need to recognize and we need to give people solutions to or certainly practical steps they can take that is giving people hope. I'm sure there's many people who've taken hope just from hearing you today. Even the fact that you've managed to. I don't know if you. You would. You would say you've conquered your food addiction or you've learned how to manage it.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (109:37)

You learned to live with it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (109:38)

You learned to live with it.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (109:39)

Migraine or something like that, you know, it's the same. It's always all type 2 diabetes. It's. It, yeah, it's in the background, but it. It's not. It's not impinging on your quality of life.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (109:49)

Can I just go through a few questions that some of my. The listeners and people on Instagram have sent in. Maybe just take three or four of them, something you've kind of covered so you can give a quick overview if you want. Rennie says. Jen, I'd like some tips, please, on reducing sugar intake in children and encouraging them to make healthier choices without feeling like they are missing out. As well as that, Jen, she also says, sometimes I feel I'm the worst mum ever. Oh, right. Because I ultimately crack and let them do these things.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (110:27)

So, yeah, it's so hard, isn't it? Real sympathies, you know, bringing up children, it's complicated. You know, the screens and the devices and the food environment. I think it's incredibly hard. So the fact that you're trying to do your best and you're thinking about it, I think that's so laudable. I Think we've talked quite a lot about not having stuff in the house and I think that is.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (110:53)

It's a great place to start.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (110:54)

It's a really good place to start. Also, you can start with breakfasts. That's another thing that we often say to families is, you know, start with a good healthy breakfast with maybe eggs or, you know, full fat yogurt. These kinds of things that aren't sugary cereals, not sugary cereals. A good place to start with kids. And actually, you know, they love. Kids love bacon and eggs. You know, that can be a great place to smell or another ways to help involve them with making stuff. So with. With our grandkids, if they stay over and they're going to school the next morning, I just do a quick smoothie with like forest fruits, usually some frozen fruits because that's a bit cheaper. Full fat yogurt, you know, blitz it all up and they, they slug that down before they go to school. So. But they love to make things like that, kids, don't they? So I think if you can involve them in cooking. Yeah. Don't have the worst things in the house. That's.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (111:55)

Yeah, great advice.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (111:56)

Two tips.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (111:58)

The other thing that I would add is one thing I try to do with my children is help them start to see the relationship between what they eat and how they feel. So if they have been at a party or whatever and they've had pizza, whatever it might be, and they don't feel good afterwards, or, I don't know, they come out on the spot the next morning or, you know what I mean? Just some way of trying to connect that when I eat like this, this happens. When I eat like this, I've got more energy. I believe that long term that's a very helpful thing because ultimately, at some point they're going to be out of your control. They're going to make their own choices. And if they can see the impact of their choices, it's much easier to start changing that.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (112:40)

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (112:41)

Sarah says, I would be interested to know if not being breastfed increases the likelihood of sugar addiction. I don't know if you know anything about that.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (112:50)

I don't know that there's any evidence about it, but this is a thing that I've. I've actually tweeted a thing to say, who out there has got a sugar addiction? Who was bottle fed? I really think there is, there is a link, but I don't know that there's any evidence. But it's something that I've really thought About. And, you know, a lot of the formulas did have sugar in. I was bottle fed. You know, it wouldn't be surprising that if that sort of, you know, set you up to some extent. Now, you know, we know that people have to bottle feed, so we don't want anybody sort of feeling good about that. But it may be that in those of us with that slight genetic vulnerability, maybe that is a factor, you know, to choose the feeds that don't have the excess sugars in them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (113:41)

Yeah. And I want to just double down on what you just said there, which is we don't want anyone to feel guilty.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (113:46)

No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (113:48)

People often have to bottle feed for a variety of different reasons. And you know, and it's like, you know, breastfeeding is really good for the gut microbiome, but if you had to bottle feed your child, there were other things you can do to help increase the health of the gut microbiome.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (114:04)

Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (114:04)

And same thing here. Yeah. If you've had to do that, don't feel guilty. Just try and absorb the things that we've been talking about and figure out how you can actually change things at home, perhaps to account for that. Sharon says, I'm really struggling with this. I'm definitely addicted to all things sugary. I read books, I Google subjects. I literally last about two to three days, then I crumble. It's not just what I eat, it's the quantity too. How can I get past this when I feel I have no willpower or discipline? That's kind of our entire conversation, I guess, Jen, isn't it?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (114:43)

Yeah, definitely, definitely. And the thing is in the early days to not be, don't be restricting your proteins and your fats, because that's how you build a body and brain. And you've got to repair the brain. You've got to be having the right nutrients, otherwise you will be getting cravings. So I think, I think, I don't know that that's the case, but I would say, you know, be eating plenty and regularly when you're trying to quit sugar, be eating plenty of good foods because you will get the cravings. Yeah. And two or three days. Yeah. You're not through. You're not through the worst of it then probably, I would say for someone like that to join a program, if you go to our website, which is the dashchc.org. yeah. And. And you know, think about signing up for a program because then you're, you know, getting expert advice, you're getting support on the way through, you're talking to other people who are going through the same thing. It makes such a difference. If you can't do it on your own, definitely join a program.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (115:46)

One thing we've not fully gone into today, but you've touched on it a few times and I just want to make sure we've, we've sort of covered this for completion. Is this idea that sometimes your desire for sugar is a consequence of what you ate or didn't eat previously. You know, so if you had a sugary cereal for breakfast, well, your blood sugar may have shot up three hours later, it may start to crash down and you then crave when it's crashing down. Yes, but actually it may be that you don't have a sugar addiction problem. It may simply be that actually that craving is a consequence of your blood sugar drop.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (116:25)

A blood sugar problem.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (116:26)

Yeah. And so if you were able to have a breakfast, as you said, with some eggs, for example, and some avocado, some yogurt, some, you know, a more protein rich and healthy, fat rich breakfast, you may find you don't have the craving. I know many patients over the years who've been in that situation. So definitely if you're having a, it's worth remembering that protein people, you know,

Dr. Jenn Unwin (116:47)

you're just not as, as hungry and as cravy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (116:51)

And of course for some people, these CGMs which I briefly spoke to, you know, these continuous glucose monitors can be a very useful tool. Maybe not, I don't mean long term necessarily, but you know, a two week

Dr. Jenn Unwin (117:03)

trial, you can learn a massive amount,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (117:05)

you can learn a ton. You can go, oh wow, actually every time I'm craving sugar it's because my blood glucose is dropping.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (117:13)

Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (117:13)

What if I change what I. And my blood sugar didn't have these highs and lows. For some people, their cravings vanish when they eat that way.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (117:21)

Yeah. So you, you learn a massive amount. And the other thing, it can be really good if you've kind of having a bit of a wobble and you want to reset. There's something about seeing it in real time on your phone and you're wanting to keep your line. For people like me anyway, you want to sort of, you want to keep the line flat. You just get that feedback immediately and you see the kinds of foods that for you personally put up the blood sugar. So yeah, a lot of people with a sugar addiction problem do really well trying out cgm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (117:52)

Jen, I've thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I think you're doing like your husband together. You guys are doing such incredible work. Final question is, for that person who throughout this conversation has recognized that actually, you know what? They've realized that they have a problematic relationship with food that they've never properly admitted to themselves. They've perhaps hidden it from the people around them. Of course, this conversation is full of advice and tips on that already. But for that person who thinks it's too late for them to change, what would you say to them?

Dr. Jenn Unwin (118:33)

Oh gosh, never too late. So we've, we've had patients in their 60s and 70s come along and make huge leaps in their mental and physical health by, you know, by quitting the sugars and the octoprosis reason, replacing it with real whole, nutrient dense food. And then that, as we've said, given them the sort of energy and the, and the focus to do other things in their lives.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (119:00)

Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (119:00)

Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (119:01)

Well, you've studied the role of hope in healthcare. I think you've left people with a lot of hope at the end of this conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (119:10)

I hope so. Thank you very much.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee (119:16)

Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. Do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life and also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else. Remember, when you teach someone, it not only helps them, it also helps you learn and retain the information. Now, before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday 5. It's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness. In that email, I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I've been consuming, and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect. And I have to say, in a world of endless emails, it really is delightful that many of you tell me it is one of the only weekly emails that you actively look forward to receiving. So if that sounds like something you would like to receive each week and every Friday, you can sign up for free@drchatterjee.com Friday 5 Now if you are new to my podcast, you may be interested to know that I have written five books that have been bestsellers all over the world covering all kinds of different topics. Happiness, food, stress, sleep, behavior change and movement, weight loss, and so much more. So please do take a moment to check them out. They are all available as paperbacks, ebooks, and as audiobooks, which I am narrating. If you enjoyed today's episode, it is always appreciated if you can take a moment to share the podcast with your friends and family or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week. And please note that if you want to listen to this show without any adverts at all, that option is is now available for a small monthly fee on Apple and on Android. All you have to do is click the link in the episode notes in your podcast app and always remember, you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle change is always worth it because when you feel better, you live more.

Dr. Jenn Unwin (121:33)

Sa.