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Is sugar a drug (i.e. psychoactive)?

ungelesene_bettlek

ungelesene_bettlek

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Feb 15, 2006
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Another question that troubles me in my search for knowledge: is sugar a drug (sensu stricto, i.e. is it psychoactive)? I mean, it is clear that too much sugar is bad for you and can lead to some kind of addiction, but is this a non-substance-dependent addiction (comparable to e.g. gambling or sex), or is there some psychopharmacological condition behind it?

Tomorrow I am going to see my psychiatrist, and I hope there is time to address this question shortly (more important is the question if I trashed my brain, of course), but I would greatly appreciate input from here.
 
I know that the more amphetamine in my system the less drawn to sugary food i feel. So i think it has something to do with dopamine
 
Thats a good point. Because i like porn and sex more on amphetamine. Didnt think of that.
 
Word has it that people with depression tend to crave carbs/sugar because stress hormones can increase such cravings.

But RE: sugar/addiction, sucrose water seems to induce a loosely addiction related gene called DeltaFosB but lots of other things that aren't strictly addiction related induce DeltaFosB. I would think that sugar is mildly reinforcing and that an animal would repeatedly choose sugar water over regular water and develop typical reinforcing behavior patterns like conditioned place preference (tending to reside closer to where they were given the sugar water). It just wouldn't be nearly as strong as something like amphetamine.

You can give a rodent amphetamine a single time and they will still show altered behavior patterns a year later. I wouldn't think of sugar as in nearly the same ballpark of potency in terms of reinforcement.
 
That makes sense because its more of i dont eat sugar because after amphetamine it doesnt do anything. But then again i think its possible since most people dont take amphetamine and dont get such strong reinforcement or i dont feel any desire to drink alcohol or euphoria that to some people sugar could be addicting
 
I think of sugar as the drug that has caused most lost years adjusted for disability in the last years. I believe the obesity epidemic is due to the sugar addiction and I challenge you to make the exercise of going to the street substituting sugar for opioids. Imagine all bakeries exposing opioid needles, imagine that opioids were on most of the food you can buy and you have to struggle to find opioid-free food. Luckily sugar and opioids are very different drugs, but if you do the exercise I think you will see my point. Sugar has noticeable mood effects and a lot of people eat when they are anxious. But every drug receives a different treatment in society, and some safe drugs are banned while others are exposed in every corner in the streets...
 
Honestly I started managing my sugar intake largely because my younger brother became a body builder and wouldnt stop saying "sugar causes an insulin dump...(on and on about how bad it is.) But that point made it feel disgusting, consuming something causes my body to respond as it would naturally but on a very unnatural level. In a sense it reminded me of MDMA's dump of serotonin, maybe not as damaging or long lasting, but it was the idea that i was forcing an exaggerated response because of the food i was consuming really bothered me. And that I was not paying attention to it, like someone who doesnt read about the negative effects of a drug then suddenly wonders why they have poor health.

I will never be able to eat my favorite candies without hearing the warning alarms from my head about how i am about to consume the total amount of sugar i eat in 5 days (i average 30-40g a day in fruits and other sources) in 30 mins. I dont abstain but its that idea that makes me go "this drink has 26g of sugar in 12oz, ill stick to water" or "i cant eat any of these for breakfast that will put me at 25g at 9am"

And since doing this i appreciate "bland" foods, plain oatmeal has the sweetness of a grain but white bread is sweeter, that kind of thing. I understand why people say fruit is like candy as it is really sweet. I highly recommend monitoring your sugar intake like you would some kind of drug, the benefits are worth the effort.

As far as addiction when i use to consume it without regard i would often get an energy drink if my mood was poor because nothing fixes mood like 56g of sugar in a short period of time. I still get cravings, especially when i consume things i shouldnt, but they are easy to ignore since i started this in April.
 
Technically, I was under the impression that no, sugar is not a drug. It is a food, however non-essential. I think this is debatable, though. It certainly causes addiction with potentially horrific consequences.
 
Now that i think about nicotine i can barely feel any high or intoxication at all and i remember like last night being with a girl who was way prettier and creative and nicer then i could of imagined and i noticed even as all my "addictive" drugs like nicotine amphetamine modafinil and caffeine left my system i didnt feel any less buzzed or euphoric. If anything i felt more euphoric then at the peak of most of my drug binges and the sedative effects and contentment of when i abused sedatives or tried alcohol never really surpassed that feeling of her falling asleep on my lap. And, id say the amount of effort money time resources id spend to see her again greatly exceeds what i do for any of my quote addictions.

I guess what im trying to say is i dont understand what addiction is. When I was "addicted" to benadyrl and dxm taking it daily because it was cheap and i hated school and wanted to pay a few dollars to be a vegetable for boring classes i wasnt stimulated by. Is this really a addiction or a rational choice to adapt to a environment you cant escape?

I didnt choose to stop it was either no longer worth it due to threats of police and forced mental inpatient and rehab so i did like any rational person.

Basically i think sugar could be a common addiction because its so common even if it seems extremely weak compared to say narcotics. And i think people take them much like many people take drugs not to get messed up but get through the day whether thats drinking a six pack of beer six packof soda a box of nuts uppers or downers ect. And over many years it can have bad effects on health
 
I have a family member on multiple diabetic drugs due to excess sugar. Maybe sugar isn't classified as a drug, but it can defenately act like one. Depending on usage, it can make you act at least like a stimulant.

Ever see a kid eat their first candybar, then fly around for a period of time? I'd say, if it's not "a drug" directly, then IMO it is a prodrug. It causes addiction that's hard to break, withdrawals can be pretty rough.

Here is an example. This is oversimplified. but in the right simple conditions it bumps into yeast, and now you formed alcohol.

I consider it a prodrug/drug.

I apologise if I went OT with this, but in the last decade a nice industry has appeared that makes pharmaceuticals for people who have developed problems by overusing a substance that is added to everything. Just because it doesn't hit you like coke, doesn't make that nice processed product any less of a drug then cocaine.

I have to use my knowledge and what I learn here to help someone with a sugar dependency. In my book, it's a drug.
 
The definition of a psychoactive drug is, that it changes the way your brain works and thus results in a change in perception, mood, consciousness or behavior.

But let me first show some arguments for sugar being a drug and the problems with this claim

1.So sugar does definitely alter brain function, because it provides energy to your brain.

The problem with this argument is, that it is somehow a natural mechanism, because some cells need glucose. (not all of them)

2. Eating sweet things is definitely a pleasurable experience by the matter of taste, leaving an association between the pleasurable behavior (eating sweet stuff) and a reward (tasty!). This association reinforces this behavior implicating changes in brain structure

the problem with this argument is that many non-drug substances can also be pleasurable (tasty). So a change in structure because an organism learned an association between tasty and reward is not a valid argument

HOWEVER the rewarding sensation (tasty!) does fade with all the other Foods but you will never be sick of eating sugar!

We also know that you can experience a sugar rush, which does definitely cause a change in mood and behavior.

As for the sugar-cures-bad-mood-Hypothesis I have recently read a research paper on this topic disproving this common belief (unfortunately ?)
 
I read the article. No matter what it's labeled, sugar is officially a drug of abuse in my mind.

Great post RDP89
 
Interesting info from Wiki, old one, so many probably have seen but thought-provoking nevertheless:
Type of reinforcer
Environmental
enrichment
Opiates
Psychostimulants
High fat or sugar foodSexual intercoursePhysical exercise
(aerobic)
ΔFosB expression in
nucleus accumbens D1-type MSNs		↑↑↑↑↑↑[107]
Behavioral plasticity
Escalation of intakeYesYesYes[107]
Psychostimulant
cross-sensitization		YesNot applicableYesYesAttenuatedAttenuated[107]
Psychostimulant
self-administration		↑↑↓↓↓[107]
Psychostimulant
conditioned place preference		↑↑↓↑↓↑[107]
Reinstatement of drug-seeking behavior↑↑↓↓[107]
Neurochemical plasticity
CREB phosphorylation
in the nucleus accumbens		↓↓↓↓↓[107]
Sensitized dopamine response
in the nucleus accumbens		NoYesNoYes[107]
Altered striatal dopamine signaling↓DRD2, ↑DRD3↑DRD1, ↓DRD2, ↑DRD3↑DRD1, ↓DRD2, ↑DRD3↑DRD2↑DRD2[107]
Altered striatal opioid signalingNo change or
↑μ-opioid receptors		↑μ-opioid receptors
↑κ-opioid receptors		↑μ-opioid receptors↑μ-opioid receptorsNo changeNo change[107]
Changes in striatal opioid peptides↑dynorphin
No change: enkephalin		↑dynorphin↓enkephalin↑dynorphin↑dynorphin[107]
Mesocorticolimbic synaptic plasticity
Number of dendrites in the nucleus accumbens↓↑↑[107]
Dendritic spine density in
the nucleus accumbens		↓↑↑[107]
 
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by definition I do not believe it is a drug but it does have many similar properties to some drugs. Our bodies need sugar in its unrefined, raw form. Fruits contain sugar but cause a different reaction in the body than refined sugar.
 
I'm flattered that a table that I added to Wikipedia has been reproduced in this thread. :p

Based upon the most common definition of a drug (i.e., "any substance (other than food that provides nutritional support) that, when inhaled, injected, smoked, consumed, absorbed via a patch on the skin, or dissolved under the tongue causes a physiological change in the body), sugar isn't a drug because it provides nutritional support. However, the physiological effects of sugar on the body are, to some extent, analogous to addictive drugs. Moreover, like psychoactive drugs, the physiological function of sugar (specifically, glucose, since this is the form of sugar that the human body utilizes in cellular metabolism and stores within various organs/cells in the form of glycogen) in the brain directly affects cognitive functions and perceptual cognition.

In relation to addictive drugs: the consumption of sugar compounds like sucrose (or just palatable food in general) by a hungry animal induces dopamine release in the ventral striatum, including the nucleus accumbens, via the mesolimbic pathway. It also activates the hedonic hotspots (i.e., the brain's "pleasure centers") in the nucleus accumbens shell and ventral pallidum. In other words, sugar consumption directly activates the epicenters of the reward system in the human/mammalian brain. The primary reason for this is evolutionary: consuming food promotes survival of an organism and more generally the species as a whole, therefore the behavior is naturally rewarding (i.e., it acts as a primary reinforcer, as indicated in the table above).

To the extent that "sugar" (glucose) is used in cellular metabolism by brain cells (neurons and neuroglia in particular), it's a psychoactive substance. This is particularly apparent in cases of hypoglycemia, which involves CNS-mediated symptoms, and pronounced states of glycogen depletion in the periphery (i.e., depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and skeletal muscles) and central nervous system (glia and cerebral blood plasma) which sometimes occurs in marathon or ultramarathon runners (more commonly in ultramarathon runners); in the latter case, hallucinations sometimes occur.
 
Mafioso said:
by definition I do not believe it is a drug but it does have many similar properties to some drugs. Our bodies need sugar in its unrefined, raw form. Fruits contain sugar but cause a different reaction in the body than refined sugar.
Click to expand...

thanks for ruining my hypothesis. Jk. But I'd still say that is skin of my teeth excuse by today's logic or amount or current legal usage standards.
 
It's some of both. It isn't psychoactive, but it can be addictive. It also does have strong affects on the body, and the reason why it is addictive is due to the changes in metabolism/non-psychological functions. The body can simply begin to crave it, and one can become psychologically addicted to sweets and fatty foods. However, it's not psychoactive. The addiction is purely the psychological craving for the sweet taste combined with the metabolic aspects which can drive people to seek out unhealthy foods. However, the whole "sugar high" thing is a myth that's often used to erroneously explain misbehaved kids with no evidence behind it. It's sort of similar to the myth that the full moon causes people to "go crazy". Something that people say without there being any scientific evidence behind it. But it certainly isn't good for you and in my experience eating healthy (during the times that I do) actually does cause you to feel better.
 
Seppi said:
Based upon the most common definition of a drug (i.e., "any substance (other than food that provides nutritional support) that, when inhaled, injected, smoked, consumed, absorbed via a patch on the skin, or dissolved under the tongue causes a physiological change in the body), sugar isn't a drug because it provides nutritional support.
Click to expand...

I think the line is kind of blurry here because after a certain amount the nutritional value is basically non existant
 
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