Differences

The most important difference between cigarette and refined food addiction is in withdrawal and relapse. For refined foods, a range of consequences of use can be induced and extinguished within days, even moments, of withdrawal and relapse.  This pattern is different from tobacco where disease consequences could take decades to manifest.  This difference provides the refined food addiction research with research tools of withdrawal and relapse that were not available to tobacco researchers.

The ability to readily induce symptoms through withdrawal and relapse should reduce the number and length of studies required to examine causality and determine whether illnesses are caused by individual refined foods such as sweeteners, sugar flour, caffeine, salt, fats, and dairy. 

Personal experience with refined food withdrawal and relapse may an effective means for spreading the word about refined food addiction.   Thus the refined food addiction research recommendations prioritize the development of research tools for helping large populations to achieve withdrawal and to learn safely from controlled relapse experiences.

If you would like to help fund research into withdrawal and relapse from refined foods, please click here https://www.refinedfoodaddiction.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1