USING DIET TO COMBAT ADDICTION

Counsellor's research focuses on changing the way we eat

For years, Kathleen DesMaisons lived with mood swings and what she calls a
``Jekyll and Hyde'' personality.

On the outside she looked successful - she was a high-achieving counsellor
for addicts and alcoholics - but inside she felt a like a fraud.

``By the time I was 40, I was highly successful, but I was coping with mood
swings and I was seriously overweight,'' she says. ``I tended to get
depressed and never knew whether Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde was going to show up.

``I thought I was going to be a bag lady,'' says DesMaisons, now the head
of Radiant Recovery, an addiction centre in New Mexico.

Then in her early 40s, DesMaisons read an article that linked alcoholism to
irregular sugar metabolism. Her interest in addiction treatment stemmed
from her childhood - her father had been an alcoholic.

Alcoholics Anonymous, the granddaddy of treatment programs for addictions,
had long suggested recovering alcoholics ingest some form of sweet - a
candy, doughnut or sugary substance - to ward off cravings for alcohol.

``I was intrigued by that, and somehow I knew I responded to sugar
strangely,'' she says. ``I craved it.''

About the same time, DesMaisons tried yet another diet to lose the excess
pounds. The number on her bathroom scale was by then reaching almost 240.
This new diet emphasized protein and vegetables.

``That got my attention because when I was eating that way, my self-esteem
went up, I was not moody or scared about the future,'' she says. ``This was
not feeling better because I was losing weight. It was a fundamental
change. And I knew it must be biological because I'd tried therapy, was a
therapist myself, and never been able to achieve those results.''

DesMaisons suspected she had inherited her father's biochemistry. She had
stopped drinking at the age of 26 after a bout with mononucleosis damaged
her liver. However, she did binge on sugar and refined carbohydrates and
felt she used food compulsively and addictively.

``I decided I responded to sugar alcoholically,'' she says.

She started on a quest to solve her own problems and possibly help others.
Today she is of ``normal'' weight, feels confident, happy and centred and
attributes this to a sensible but substantial change in her eating habits.

It started when she began quizzing her addiction clients about their diet
and found most ate the same way she did - skipping meals and bingeing on
sugars and refined carbohydrates.

That was when she seriously delved into the research about sugar, brain
chemistry and mood disorders and alcoholism. There was a lot to review.
Besides scores of scientific papers and journals linking sugar and brain
chemistry to alcoholism, there were many books already published.

As far back as about 40 years ago, health food guru Adele Davis had
advocated eating protein at each meal to regulate mood through blood sugar.

Sugar Blues, published in 1975, suggested addiction to sugar caused a host
of emotional problems. And in the mid 1980s, Seven Weeks To Sobriety
outlined a diet and vitamin approach to addiction that aimed to stabilize
blood sugar and rebalance brain chemistry to fight addiction.

``There is a whole body of knowledge that talks about carbohydrate
sensitivity (in addiction),'' she says. ``We don't know what causes it - it
is not something that has been studied intensively, but it has been
recognized in the alcoholism literature.''

DesMaisons found a wealth of studies that, when linked together, all
pointed to the same thing - some people reacted to alcohol and sugar
differently that others.

Alcohol creates a rush of beta-endorphins similar to sugar. And alcoholic
drinks like beer and wine have high levels of sugar in them, she noted.

Her research, on the similarities in the affects of alcohol and sugar
consumption in alcoholics and people who have alcoholic relatives, became
the basis for a diet program with an unheard of 92 per cent recovery rate
for alcoholics. This has stayed at 85 per cent in a five-year follow-up.

Recovery rates for alcoholism programs vary from as low as 25 per cent to
about 50 per cent depending on the support available and how recovery is
defined.

Today she believes that even people who are not addicted to alcohol or
drugs can have a skewed body chemistry that plunges them into a type of
sugar sensitivity that leads to what has often been labelled ``an alcoholic
personality'' - prone to mood swings, poor impulse control and excess in
many aspects of living.

After gathering her research she wrote her doctoral thesis on the subject
that she turned into a book, Potatoes Not Prozac, (Fireside, Simon &
Schuster, $17.75).

Now being released in paperback, the book sets out a seven-step program for
recovery from what she calls sugar sensitivity and addictions to alcohol.
The title was conceived because DesMaisons believes many people with sugar
sensitivity are placed on antidepressants in a bid to help their moods.

She believes her seven-step program can bring well-being to a huge chunk of
the population, addicted or not.

Step one is to keep a food journal to identify how your eating patterns
affect the way you feel physically and mentally.

By increasing your awareness of how food affects you, it is easier to
adjust your diet, she says.

Step two is very basic - eat three meals a day at regular intervals. Step
three is take vitamins as recommended. DesMaisons is not a believer in
megavitamin therapy and believes it is best to get nutrients from your diet
wherever possible. However, she does suggest vitamin C, a B complex and
zinc, because they have been documented to help alcoholics in withdrawal.

Eating protein at each meal is step four. DesMaisons suggests people eat
0.4 to 0.6 grams of protein per pound of body weight over the day. This
helps stabilize blood sugar, she says.

Step five is to eat more complex carbohydrates because they are broken down
less quickly into sugar. Step six is to reduce or eliminate sugars and
alcohol.

And step seven is to create a plan to maintain your new eating habits.

The program is not rigid. In fact, DesMaisons encourages people to take it
``at their own pace.

``Don't try to do it all at once or you will fail,'' she says.

Take it in sequence and adjust gradually, she cautions.

People with the sugar sensitivity syndrome, and alcoholics, often have
several distinct biological traits, she says. The first is an abnormally
reactive blood sugar curve. That means when they eat sugar or refined
carbohydrates their blood sugar peaks rapidly and goes higher than other
people, causing a massive release of insulin to counteract the sugar surge.

This causes an abrupt fall in blood sugar, bringing on symptoms of
hypoglycemia or low blood sugar - shakiness, moodiness, an inability to
concentrate among other things. The body then craves sugar to offset these
symptoms and the cycle begins again. Years of experiencing such ups and
downs wreaks havoc on the body, she says.

She also believes many who she deems sugar sensitive have chronic low
levels of some important brain chemicals called neurotransmitters.

Most have chronic low levels of serotonin - a mood regulator, which, when
present in insufficient levels, has been linked to depression and poor
impulse control.

They also have low levels of beta-endorphins - the body's natural opiates,
produced to counteract physical and emotional pain.

The brains of people with low levels of these chemicals try to compensate.
They activate more receptor cells - cells that act as sponges to soak up
and more efficiently use the brain chemicals.

Sugar increases the production of both serotonin and beta-endorphin,
DesMaisons says. And, she points out, alcohol acts similarly to a highly
refined sugar when ingested.

The problem is, though sugar gives a boost and initial rush as the extra
``sponges'' soak up the brain chemicals, after the blood sugar drops the
extra sponges are still seeking more, causing further cravings for sugar
and alcohol.

Since alcohol and sugar affect these brain chemicals in a similar way, the
craving for sugar can easily switch to a craving for alcohol, she says.

``There are three legs of the stool - blood sugar levels - beta-endorphin
levels and serotonin levels,'' she says. ``If any one is out of whack,
things don't work.''

DesMaisons believes that by stabilizing blood sugar levels and trying to
balance the brain chemistry, a person with sugar sensitivity or alcoholism
can more easily resist their cravings.

Her emphasis on the role of the body's natural opiates - which peak in some
people when they ingest sugar or alcohol - is what she considers to be the
missing piece of the addiction puzzle. Such peaks give susceptible people
an irresistible high or rush that sparks addiction, she says.

Dr. Christina Gianoulakis, a researcher with McGill University at Douglas
Hospital in Verdun, Que., has reviewed DesMaisons' thesis.

Gianoulakis studied people who come from families with a strong history of
alcoholism and found indications that they do, in fact, produce higher
levels of the brain's natural opiates when they ingest alcohol - than
people not related to alcoholics.

She says there is no dispute that many alcoholics metabolize sugar
unusually and there are several studies indicating that alcoholism is
linked to a pre-existing skewed brain chemistry.

Gianoulakis says DesMaisons' work has ``much merit'' but says it is time to
set up controlled clinical trials of her methods.

``Once this is done and if the cure rates (DesMaisons) has seen hold up in
a controlled study,'' the academic and medical community will have better
reason to use them, she says.

However, Trish Dekker, head nutritionist at the Centre for Addiction and
Mental Health, Donwood Division, cautions against any ``fad cures'' for
alcoholism.

She finds DesMaisons' approach questionable.

``There is a lot of conflicting information out there,'' she says.

``We caution people against anything too extreme. The idea is to create a
balance.''

At Donwood, staff stress eating more complex carbohydrates and following a
balanced diet with exercise. Having sugar is all right as long as it is in
moderation, she says. But abstinence from alcohol is crucial.

DesMaisons says addicted people should not attempt to treat themselves and
she also endorses self-support groups such as AA. She also says anyone with
serious mood problems should see a doctor.

However, if you are struggling with mood swings, compulsive eating and
other problems, and are sure you have no other medical problem, she thinks
her plan will help - especially if there is a history of alcoholism in your
family background.