Sugar Addiction

Sugar is more than likely a bigger part of your diet than you realize and YOU ARE PROBABLY ADDICTED TO IT. Some researchers believe it is one of the main reasons you could be struggling with issues such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart diseases, and there is also a potential link to cancer. According to Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist, sugar is one of the most toxic products on the market. Even when making an effort to avoid it, we are often failing mainly because when there was a big push to remove fats from our foods in the 1970s, manufacturers had to come up with a way to make them taste better. This led to the creation of sugars such as High fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) found in a number of sweetened products. Believe it or not the actual consumption of real sugar has gone down about 70%, but sadly HFCS has made up the difference. Ironically Dr. Lustig, believes there is really no difference between real sugar and products such as HFCS, as they are all toxic. Even in sugar free products such as protein shakes, peanut butter, bread and so on, sweeteners are still used to make them more palatable.

Now how could you be addicted to sugar? According to Eric Stice, a neuroscientist at the Oregon Research Institute, sugar activates the brain the same way as addictive drugs such as cocaine. Stice found that when something sweet touches your tongue, say soda or barbeque sauce, the brain releases the feel good chemical dopamine, in the same manner as if you took cocaine or drank alcohol. So each you time you ate something sweet, even mildly, you experience euphoric feelings. However, much like a drug addict the feeling of euphoria begins to diminish, so you keep trying to find that first high, which leads to consuming more and more sugars.

So what is the solution? I believe that we should completely avoid sugars as much as we can, and much like a drug addict go through a detox. Try drinking your coffees or teas black. Avoid sweet juices such as soda (even diet) or boxed fruit juice, and go for real fruit which even though has sugar, does contain fiber which slows down the absorption of the sugar. Be sure to eat foods like tomatoes, onions, or brewer’s yeast which are rich in the mineral Chromium which can stabilize blood sugars. I also believe that once per week each month, one should try a Ketogenic diet, which limits or removes completely carbohydrates and sugars from your diet. This will leave you with only fibrous carbohydrates, fattier proteins sources such as salmon, and more healthy fats like fish oil, avocado, coconut oil and so forth. This will allow your body to produce glycogen (stored energy created from sugar and carbohydrates) from your body fat. The benefit here is that you stabilize insulin levels, and can even lose weight in the process if that’s your goal.

I hope you found this information useful, and not too nerdy :).  As always stay fit and well family :).