You want to know why so many Americans are overweight (obese) and diabetes is at epidemic proportions? It’s because of an addiction that is largely ignored by most outside the medical field.

You’ve heard of alcoholics and people addicted to drugs, gambling, pornography and even stealing, but chances are, you may not have heard about people being addicted to carbs – also known as carboholics.

How strong is the addiction to carbs? One person reported:

“I’ve been eating a high-fat, carb-restricted diet for almost 20 years, since I started as an experiment when investigating nutrition research for the journal Science. I find it’s easy for me to maintain a healthy weight when I eat this way. But even after two decades, the sensation of being on the edge of a slippery slope is ever-present.”

With holidays coming up, the temptation to indulge is strong and causes so many to bulge as a result. First there is all the candy around for Halloween, followed by Thanksgiving with the turkey dressing gravy, pies, and many other bad carbs. A month later, that is followed by Christmas with more candy, sweets and tons of bad carbs, followed a week later with the New Year celebration which often is celebrated with beer, chips pretzels and dips, all of which are bad carbs.

So, why are bad carbs so addictive?

One theory that is starting to gain in popularity is that obesity is a hormonal regulatory disorder and the hormone that controls the process is insulin. According to one source:

“It directly links what we eat to the accumulation of excess fat and that, in turn, is tied to the foods we crave and the hunger we experience. It’s been known since the 1960s that insulin signals fat cells to accumulate fat, while telling the other cells in our body to burn carbohydrates for fuel. By this thinking these carbohydrates are uniquely fattening.”

“Since insulin levels after meals are determined largely by the carbohydrates we eat – particularly easily digestible grains and starches, known as high glycemic index carbohydrates, as well as sugars like sucrose – diets based on this approach specifically target these carbohydrates. If we don’t want to stay fat or get fatter, we don’t eat them.”

Dr. Robert Lustig, a Pediatric Endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco, believes that just raising the insulin level just a little, causes the body to start burning carbs instead of fat. He explained:

“The more insulin you release, the more you crave carbs. Once you’re exposed to a little carbohydrate, and you get an insulin rise from it, that forces energy into fat cells and that deprives your other cells of the energy they would otherwise have utilized – in essence, starvation. So, you compensate by getting hungry, particularly for more carbohydrate. High insulin drives carb-craving.”

High carb foods tend to exacerbate binge behavior while eating fat-rich foods tends to lessen the same binge cravings. It becomes a vicious circle that causes the body to crave more and more bad carbs which results in more body fat and often results in diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and more.

You know how a drug addict says they didn’t think they would really become an addict, that they could quit any time, but before they knew it, they were hooked and couldn’t kick the habit? The same is true with carbs. Once you start, it’s very difficult to stop. When you look at most of the foods that sell in grocery stores, fast foods, restaurants and even what is served in many homes, they are foods that contain the bad carbs that result in becoming a carboholic. And just like an alcoholic or drug addict, just one little donut is enough to cause someone to fall off their diet and into the trap of craving more bad carbs.