Modified post. Read the edit at the buttom.
Now, call me crazy, I don’t think so! I have been an addict and I know how it is to be an addict, but I don’t think sugar is as addictive as cocaine. And I really am frustrated with people who say such things.
This notion that it’s as addictive drives me crazy! I mean, imagine someone gullible who says, well, “I can control my addiction to ice cream, heck I can go without ice cream for months, if it’s as addictive as cocaine, why not give cocaine a chance? It’s not like it’s gonna destroy me or something?” Yeah, I have once been this gullible (when I was younger) and I hate this.
I do crave sugar and I do occasionally (once per week and sometimes twice a month) buy sugary treats/lays packet (5 Indian Rupees, smallest one) to quench that craving, but I refuse to believe that it is as addictive as cocaine or any other drugs. PS: My last lays packet was 45 ago and I am fine, and this is the most addictive substance I have consumed.
I am pretty some people here have been addicted to cocaine (truly no judgement, I hope you are sober now), so what say you?
PS: If you haven’t been addicted to anything drastic as drugs, you are still welcome to chip in.
edit: thank you all for adding greater context.
I realize now that when they talk about sugar, they are not just talking abt lays and ice creams, but sugar in general. I get the studies now. But media is doing a terrible job of reporting on studies.
Also, the media depiction of scientific studies is really the worst. I mean, they make claims which garbage and/or incomplete data or publish articles on studies which make more alarming claims. Also, maybe wait for a consensus before you publish anything, i.e., don’t publish anything which isn’t peer reviewed and replicated multiple times. Yes, your readers might miss out on the latest and greatest, but it isn’t really helpful if the latest and greatest studies in science aren’t peer reviewed and backed up well by data.
I feel like a headline “SUGAR IS AS ADDICTIVE AS COCAINE” can and will be life destroying if you don’t give enough information. I feel like there should be an ethical responsibility to not sensationalize studies, maybe instead of “SUGAR IS AS ADDICTIVE AS COCAINE” give a headline like “Sugar and Addiction, what science says.”
also, https://i.imgur.com/VrBgrjA.png ss of bing chat gpt answering the question.
some articles: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/25/is-sugar-really-as-addictive-as-cocaine-scientists-row-over-effect-on-body-and-brain
https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/experts-is-sugar-addictive-drug
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/cravings/202209/is-sugar-addictive
https://brainmd.com/blog/what-do-sugar-and-cocaine-have-in-common/
I challenge anyone who says sugar isn’t addictive to go a week without. No sugar. No sugar substitutes like fructose. I’ve done it. It is awful.
I’ve also done hard drugs. Quitting those are awful too.
The difference is that I haven’t done drugs in decades but I still have a pack of Oreos on my counter.
See, the impracticality here is not that I’d be jonesing for sugar, it’s that almost all processed food and most natural food has a little sugar in it, and also that our bodies literally require some simple carbohydrates to operate. Best case, you go on a hard keto overnight, and yes, the first week is terrible, because keto is a stupid fucking diet that doctors don’t recommend because it sucks.
Yes, if I eat nothing but beef and saltines for a week, I’m going to feel like shit. That’s not an addiction issue.
Fun fact exogenous sugar is not required in the human diet. The body will produce sugar in the liver through a process called gluconeogenesis converting fat into sugar. But it only needs to do that a little bit.
Very very little fat can be converted to sugar actually. It’s usually protein that gets converted.
Bruh saltines has carbs, cut that out too
but no simple carbs, no sugars. Got some carbs in on a technicality!
Carbohydrates are converted directly into glucose (sugar) in the liver. So they are effectively the same thing.
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Directly?
To that challenge I would specify “in anything”. Sugar and equivalent is in almost all processed foods.
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That would be comparable with asking someone who smokes weed a couple of times a year to quit cold turkey.
Of course it’s not going to make any difference to you if you stop taking sugar or not.
However ask someone who “needs” to have that redbull every day. Who drinks sugary lattes, eats sweetened bread and so on.
Ask them to quit and they will most likely experience withdrawal symptoms and have a really hard time to keep away from sugar.
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To second your point with something that’s easier to grasp:
It’s quite common for people who are heavily addicted to nicotine to be able to enjoy a little bit of alcohol sometimes or completely go without. Or be able to go shopping without getting addicted to it.
Being addicted to one thing doesn’t mean you automatically get addicted to all other things that people can get addicted to.
Going without a basic macro nutrient making you feel bad doesn’t mean its addictive. You’d feel like shit if you tried to go without oxygen too. Your body doesn’t need as much sugar as many consume, but it’s more than nothing.
Sugar is not nutritionally required. Humans can live without sugar in their diet, including carbohydrates. Paleo/keto are viable diets the humans live with throughout history.
So it is not a necessary macronutrient. It is not necessary like oxygen.
Of course the literature has many assumptions about sugar, and it’s easy to get confused. Which is why we need more foundational nutritional research from the ground up not sponsored by corporations. To help clarify all of this.
But if you know of even one person who does strict keto, and there’s still alive, it’s clearly not as necessary as oxygen.
The human body can create glucose from fat sources, it’s called gluconeogenesis and it happens in the liver. But it only produces small amounts of blood glucose. And because it synthesize sugar from fat, exogenous sugar is clearly not biologically necessary
Sugar is not a basic macronutrient. The macronutrients are protein, carbohydrates, and fat.
Well, your body needs carbs. And theoretically, you could do a low-carb diet, even a keto diet, but… keto is fucking dumb.
So, yes, in practice, you’re gonna want at least some sugar in your diet.
I’m pretty addicted to oxygen at this point to be fair…
Are you just talking about refined sugar or are you including natural sugar in that too?
Is it even possible to eat healthily for a week with no sugar?
I feel like if I’m allowed fruit it’d be pretty easy tbh.
Healthy as in survivable sure, but I’m pretty sure at that point you would already notice the side effects of not having access to carbohydrates.
Most fruits have a huge amount of sugars (and are therefore not healthy in large amounts), so I would say they count as sugar for this purpose.
Yeah I don’t mean survivable. I was thinking about the implication from the comment that sugar is this horrific substance which is prone to abuse and should be avoided at all costs.
If the point is for refined sugar then I’m with them. If they’re talking about sugar as a whole though, then it would be unhealthy to go for a week without any.
ok that makes more sense.
I have dropped all sugar a couple times. It’s not easy, but also not terribly hard for me. That’s not to say that is the case for everyone, just me. I have seen people come out of addiction to a few different drugs and it was not at all comparable. To compare my experiences with sugar would be as insulting as OP describes, if not more so.
But humans are all different, so I wouldn’t be shocked if for some it is comparable.
I can easily go for a week without sugar. I did it recently. I wanted to lose some weight so I cut out sugar. Usually I have some desert after lunch but I just stopped. Usually I put sugar in my coffee but I stopped. I don’t drink sugary drinks so that was easy. I didn’t have any bad cravings or anything. I would simply think about eating ice cream and even if I had some in the fridge I would just say ‘nope’ and move on. I was doing this until I lost the weight I wanted to lose so for about 2 months.
If sugar is as addictive as drugs does it mean I just start smoking and doing drugs and it will be as easy to quit?
Not literally everyone is addicted to sugar. I barely have it and many days don’t have any of it at all (and I know it’s not in the food I’m eating because I make the food I’m eating).
Do you also know what the plants you use to make your food consist of?
Onions are about 4% sugar, for example. And that is excluding more complex carbohydrates that are essentially the same to your body. I highly doubt you don’t eat any sugar for days on end.
You barely eat sugar. Sure. But not eating any is close to impossible I’d argue.
Often, yes. It’s something I’ve had to look up in order to properly reintroduce foods on the low FODMAP diet.
Anyway, this conversation is about refined sugar. I eat fruit, for example.
fruit is natures provider of “refined” sugar. you body doesn’t care whether you first actually refined it and then put it in a cake. It’s the same sugar while it’s still inside the apple (I know nobody refines sugar from apples but you get my point)
That’s not how sugar works.
I did it many times and it wasn’t awful in any way. If you cut all carbs, that’s different though, and it has little to do with addiction and a lot to do with your body entering ketosis. That’s not to deny that food can be addictive. Anything can be addictive. People get addicted to porn, phones and computer games after all. But people blow this sugar thing way out of proportion.