Sugar as addictive as cocaine, nicotine

slimvictor

slimvictor

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For many people, the appetite for high-calorie items appears to be insatiable. But does this qualify as addiction?

An article in the Huffington Post last year by Frank Lipman - who describes himself as an integrative doctor - on his apparent sugar addiction and the road to kicking the habit, has provoked a great deal of discussion on sugar addiction.

Lipman believes that the desire for sugar is triggered initially by the sugar in mother's milk, and later by parents using treats to console or reward their children. By adulthood, people anticipate that sugar will improve mood and provide energy.

Following a 2007 study on rats, which love sugar just as much as people, French researchers came to the conclusion that sugar was as addictive as cocaine, nicotine and alcohol.

They offered the rodents a choice between water sweetened with saccharin and water laced with cocaine, and 94 per cent of the rats took the sweet option.

A further test revealed that even rats used to cocaine switched to sugar as soon as they were given the choice.

But Falk Kiefer, a German professor who specialises in addiction, says: "There is no such thing as sugar addiction."

The desire for food cannot be equated to heroin addiction, in Kiefer's view, although both sugar and heroin work on the same part of the brain: the reward system.

Nutritionist Sven-David Mueller is of the same opinion. "The kind of addiction people have for cocaine or psychotropic drugs doesn't develop with chocolate. Rather, there is a highly developed desire," he says, and this is tantamount to addiction for some people.

cont at
http://health.msn.co.nz/healthnews/8582942/sugar-as-addictive-as-cocaine-nicotine
 
sugar isn't addictive unless you're addicted to food in the first place. I'm not about to load up a syringe of sugar and hit a vein. Nor do i get cravings like nicotine for it.
 
I agree that it is pretty addictive. I need to cut back on my sugar intake and I have a difficult time with that even after facing some negative reprocussions.
 
I wouldn't consider it as addictive as nicotine or cocaine, but I often go days without nicotine and cocaine yet I can't remember a sugarless day 8)
 
this just in: hardwired instinct for survival causes reward.

of course sugar, salt, glutamate/umami (moreover the category of Tasty Food) are addictive. there is an evolutionary benefit to seeking out high calorie (sugar)/high mineral content (salty)/high protien (umami) sustenance because traditionally food has not always been so abundant as it is today, and those who consumed more calories/salt/protien generally fared better than those who subsisted on beet roots and salad greens when the winter hit. hence there is a dopamine based reward pathway for seeking out delicious food and salty snacks inborn into most people. culturally, especially in the west, this reward is also reinforced socially (using sugary snacks as treats/rewards/comfort food etc)

now with the advent of electric heating, hydroponics, refrigerated food transport, canning, refined sugar, hydrogenated oils, etc the tables have turned and there is essentially no benefit to eating humongous quantities of calories/salt because *everyone* can do that. the people who now have a benefit are those who eat a balanced diet and do not stress their body's energy storage facilities (fat production). expect that in 5000 to 10000 years the next evolutionary iteration of humans will have a hard coded reward path for eating spinach salad and borscht.

this is kind of like an article claiming sex/masturbation is addictive. well yes of course it is. again, hardwired dopamine release that helps ensure the survival of the species.
 
I don't find sugary foods that compelling or compulsive.

I'm 5ft 11 and 11 stone so I'm a little underweight, but I find fatty/greasy foods (like McDonalds, KFC etc) much more compelling...
 
i love sugar.... but i used to love drugs wayyyyyy more

and really is it fair to compare human personality addiction traits to those in rats because last i checked we are very very different organisms even if "rats love sugar as much as humans".... clearly they dont love cocaine as much!
 
tackyspiral said:
i love sugar.... but i used to love drugs wayyyyyy more

and really is it fair to compare human personality addiction traits to those in rats because last i checked we are very very different organisms even if "rats love sugar as much as humans".... clearly they dont love cocaine as much!
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Agreed. The methodological flaw in this study is assuming that rats' affinity for cocaine was the same as humans'.

Is sugar addictive? That is, do people consume it without ability to stop, despite known and acknowledged detriment to self? Yes. But I'd say more people are able to consume sugar and not become addicted than cocaine.
 
I also have addiction for breating air ( very addictive ) and red cells with oxygen..... the heartbeat is very addictive,I just cant stop

and the sugar,ofcourse I could stop becose evidently we humans have cold fusion reactor inside us so we dont need any sugar energy,its just very addictive!
 
Tenchi said:
A stone is 14lbs - British imperial measurement. :)
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thanks, always appreciate the British

DOB said:
I also have addiction for breating air ( very addictive ) and red cells with oxygen..... the heartbeat is very addictive,I just cant stop

and the sugar,ofcourse I could stop becose evidently we humans have cold fusion reactor inside us so we dont need any sugar energy,its just very addictive!
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...im confused. Nevertheless, you are right in that we don't need any sugar.
 
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