My mother-in-law has developed an extreme appetite for sweets. Has anyone come across something like this?

My Mom also has only recently wanted candy constantly. Chocolate to be exact.

She is 90. She is underweight. I figure at this point...anything I can do to increase her calories is good. Boost with chocolate syrup and ice cream in the blender..... chocolate deserts after dinner. I throw vitamins into the cake mix...add a little extra buttermilk to the drink...anything to up the calories...

Thank you, all.

BB - no chance, no. I emailed her a research paper from the Weizmann Institute this morning, and I've just had her reply saying "gosh how interesting I'm going to ignore that thanks." Ugh. I mean, she has a First Class Honours degree in Pharmacology - I don't expect her to take my word for anything medical or scientific, obviously. But these people aren't cranks or amateurs. Doesn't she care what they have to say?

What leaves me dissatisfied is that if MIL had always enjoyed moderate quantities of sweet things it would make sense that she'd eat more of them as other flavours diminished. It's that never having been bothered at all, not so you'd notice, she's now gorging. Or, at least, when I say gorging - she didn't wait as everyone else did until the Easter egg hunt was over, she started noshing as soon as she found her first one and kept going all the way through. She swiped somebody else's chocolate rabbit at the dining table (!). She was seeking reassurance that there was ice cream for dessert while we were still on our appetisers.

It's just so out of character. Not the being a bit selfish part, I'm sorry to say, but the undignified gluttony in front of other people part, and for childish sugary stuff.

I think something's gone wrong in her brain. If anyone knows of any really authoritative sources working on this I'd be grateful and will try again to pass them on. Otherwise, then it'll have to be a case of "not my circus", I'm afraid.

I haven't read the other answers yet, but I'll just tell you about my husband, who was in his late 70s when he died. Until he became ill, he was the kind of person who would eat half a candy bar and save the rest for later. Then he became obsessed with having sweets available at all times. Toward the end of his life, he lost interest in sweets and died, leaving me obligated to eat a tray full of frozen eclairs. I enjoyed your writing style.

My grandfather was never big on sweets, but toward the end of his life he would eat a whole Sara Lee pound cake every day. There was no convincing him not to. In retrospect it was not worth worrying about although at the time my mom (his daughter) argued and pleaded with him about it to no end. At the time I told her that he is an old man so let him eat the cake. I was a teenager then, but I still think it was good advice.

CM--you ALWAYS have the answers!! What can we do to help the helper??
Life is weird, and I think we all know that.
My friend's mother, in her final year of life, went crazy for Lindt chocolate (which I understand, those truffles are amazing). This lady would give money to the kids she KNEW would buy her a couple bags of them. (She had grown up as a farm wife and they never had sugary things.) After she passed, my friend went to retrieve her personal belongings from the NH, and found...hundreds of Lindt chocolates in her bedside table. She also discovered that her mother had been eating these to the exclusion of almost everything else. What did it matter, in the end? She went out with chocolate on her face and a smile.

CM, not your circus, dear one. Your SIL knows there is stuff going on but given their history what will she do? I think that you might remember that inhibitions slip and what you are seeing is what was INSIDE all the time, just better hidden until now. N A R C I S S I S T. Just like my mother-in-law whose progressing Parkinson's dementia is no longer allowing her to remember which lie she told who and what manipulation worked. Sad, but there is little to do but manage around them.

Does she have any form of dementia? Years ago, I read an article about why dementia patients will crave sweets and other foods that they typically don't eat. Something about their dopamine center and it's reward system is the reason for this. It's a biochemical change related to the progression of dementia. My friend's mother had Lewy Body disease and the year before she passed away, she would eat an entire sheet cake, like a very large one, all by herself. The family kept saying it was depression though she wasn't diagnosed with depression. A sudden change in eating sweets can signal an elevated blood sugar or a Candida overgrowth though it hasn't physically presented on the skin yet or something else is going on. Letting the primary doctor is a good idea and it certainly wouldn't hurt to request a complete blood work panel with urine test if this hasn't been done in the last six months.

She should  have her blood sugar tested but I have observed many folks at the hotel California who only eat desserts and ice cream

Mom barely touched her dinner at Easter but then erupted into a chant of I want cake - I want cake - I want cake when dessert was mentioned

Of course she has had a sweet tooth all her life too

My mom always baked cakes and pies when we were growing up and ate an average amount of sweets. We did notice she began to enjoy desserts more as she got older, especially after she moved into her assisted living apartment. However, after we moved her to the continuous care unit when she was 92 and were going through her apartment to pack and clean for the next person, we started finding bags of candy hidden away everywhere. We began laughing because she had so much hidden we couldn't help but believe she'd buy candy, hide it somewhere, and forget where she'd hidden it. She became very popular with the aides at the care center because she inadvertently supplied them all with candy for quite a while as we gave the bags to the shift supervisors in her unit. :)

You're right, Golden, I do just have to accept that "we'll see."

I know this is nothing new to you, of all people; but it's the... ohhhh, even writing it down seems futile. It's the frustration of this inability to make her understand that it is not only her needs that have to be considered and it isn't only for her sake that the family needs to have some idea of her true state of health.

I could start sending her cakes and chocolates. But that would be a bit evil of me...🐒