Can we really be addicted to food? (With Dr. David Kessler)

Nutrition Diva

Macmillan Holdings, LLC

Health & Fitness, Education, Arts, Nutrition, Food

4.3 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today's episode explores whether certain foods can be addictive, with insight from Dr. David Kessler, former FDA Commissioner and author of "Diet, Drugs, and Dopamine." Monica and Dr. Kessler discuss the concept of food addiction, compulsive eating, and the brain's reward system.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You know the feeling. You're not hungry, but that bag of chips or pan of brownies is still calling
0:07.3	your name, and the longer you try to ignore it, the louder it gets. Well, today, we're exploring
0:13.4	whether certain foods can actually be addictive. And we have some insight from Dr. David Kessler,
0:20.1	former FDA commissioner, and author of the new book, Diet, Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. insight from Dr. David Kessler, former FDA Commissioner and author of the
0:22.5	new book, Diet, Drugs, and Dopamine. Welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast, where we take
0:34.7	a closer look at nutrition news, research, and trends, so that you can feel more
0:39.0	confident about what you eat. I'm your host, Monica Reinagle, and today we're talking about
0:44.7	the somewhat controversial topic of food addiction. Are certain foods literally addictive?
0:52.9	Should we view or treat compulsive eating as an actual addiction?
0:59.6	Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner and author of the bestselling book, The End of
1:05.5	Overeating, has just published a new book. It's called Diet, Drugs, and Dopamine. And this topic of food addiction
1:12.6	is a key theme in both books. I recently had the chance to sit down with Dr. Kessler for an
1:19.3	extended conversation, and I'm going to be sharing some excerpts from that interview throughout
1:24.1	this episode. But as I was preparing for that sit-down, I pulled up an article
1:30.4	on food addiction that I wrote for Food and Nutrition magazine back in 2013, so about 12 years ago.
1:38.2	And way back then, I wrote, If food addiction is a real phenomenon, then drugs being developed to combat other
1:46.9	addictions might one day be a potent weapon in the fight against obesity. Well, of course,
1:54.4	it has turned out to be exactly the opposite case. Today, we have new drugs that have revolutionized obesity treatment and are now
2:03.6	being looked at as a potential treatment for other kinds of addictions. And I'm talking, of course,
2:08.5	about the GLP1 medications, such as Wegovi, Ozempic, Zepbound, and others. Dr. Kessler and I talked
2:17.4	quite a bit about these GLP-1s in our conversation,
2:20.6	and I'm going to be sharing some of that with you in a future episode. But before we talk
	...

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