The Biobehavioral Impact of Diet Quality on Affect and Craving
Condition: Food Addiction; Withdrawal
MeSH terms: Behavior, Addictive; Food Addiction
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The current study experimentally investigates whether reducing highly processed (HP) foods
      (defined in this study as foods high in added sugars) leads to, psychological and / or
      behavioral indicators of withdrawal. The following hypotheses are tested:

        1. To test the hypothesis that reducing highly processed food intake will result in higher
           daily reports of physical (e.g. headaches), cognitive (e.g. difficulty concentrating),
           and affective (e.g., irritability) withdrawal symptoms).

        2. To test the hypothesis that reducing highly processed food intake will result in
           increased negative affect (e.g., irritability, depression) as indicated by and
           psychological (self - reported distress ratings; daily emotion / mood reports) measures.

        3. To test the hypothesis that reducing highly processed food intake will result in
           increased food craving as indicated by psychological (self - report craving ratings;
           daily craving report) measures.

      All activities are completed remotely. Participants complete 4 phone appointments with a
      trained member of the research team. Daily questionnaires and ecological momentary
      assessments are completed at home between phone appointments. The initial call signs
      electronic consent and gets baseline measurements (questionnaires). After the initial call,
      participants start an active assessment period (pre / post dietary change assessments).
      Pre-dietary change includes at home questionnaires and ecological momentary assessments while
      eating a typical diet. It also includes the second phone appointment. Post-dietary change
      includes at home questionnaires and ecological momentary assessments while consuming 3 days
      of food portions lower in highly processed foods. Participants will complete a food journal
      on the remaining 2 days of post - dietary change assessment to report what food they ate.
      Post - dietary change also includes the third phone appointment. The second and third phone
      appointments each include computer tasks and questionnaires. The final phone appointment is a
      debriefing interview. Participants planning to continue eating a healthier diet may also be
      invited to complete a follow-up period, which involves answering a short questionnaire at
      home every other day for two weeks. 7 individuals had in-person data collected prior to the
      pandemic requiring a shift to virtual data collection.
    


Intervention name(s): Dietary Change (low in highly processed foods)
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): For post-dietary change, food is provided for 3 days (participants provide own food and do food journals the other 2 days to confirm adherence). University of Michigan's Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC)'s Metabolic Kitchen prepares the food. Low HP food diet is based on prior methods where participants are placed on an isocaloric diet composed of 5% or less of calories from added sugar and 10% or less of overall calories from total sugar. No foods that meet the criteria for a HP food (defined by Kant and colleagues) that corresponds to: sweeteners (sugar, candy, etc); carbonated and non-carbonated beverages (fruit drinks, sweetened / diet beverages, etc.); baked / dairy desserts (cookies, ice cream, etc.); salted snacks (potato chips, etc.) and fast foods (pizza, cheeseburgers, etc.) are included in diet portions. The overall macro nutrient composition of the diet will be approximately 20-25% of kcal from protein, 30-35% of kcal from fat, and 40-50% of kcal from carbohydrates.
Intervention model: Single Group Assignment
Intervention model description: Multi-method, within subjects, prospective, experimental design
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Basic Science
Keywords: withdrawal; highly processed food; food addiction