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/
It depends on the person. For me, not really. I get mild cravings but they're easy to overcome.
What really helps is having something sweet that has no added sugars, like fruit or natural sweeteners like stevia or monk fruit or some-such. That way you can have the taste of sweet without all of the baggage.
I am pretty sure it's the taste of sweet that's addictive and not the actual sugar.
To answer your question, no, it is not and never will be as addictive as hard drugs.
An average apple, which is a fairly mild fruit, has 20 to 25 grams of sugar. There may be none added but it's still a ton of sugar. Try weighing out 25 grams of sugar to see what that looks like.
We also bred fruit to be sweeter than they were naturally, so there's that as well.
It's not the same kind of sugar as table sugar so your comparison is disingenuous, as is the whole debate.
When we talk about sugar in the context of food addiction or weight management, we mean sucrose, as in table sugar. Not the fructose in fruit.
You can quibble about the semantics of it if you want to, but those definitions are set in stone and nothing you're going to say will change that.
Now stop arguing in bad faith and let the rest of us speak our minds.
Also apples have 8 grams of sugars in them on average, not 25, now let's watch you prove my point that you're just here to argue and not to meaningfully talk about sugar addiction by arguing about apples more.
Actually respectfully no. When we talk about sugar in diet, we're talking about carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are converted to glucose in the liver, and it's glucose levels in the bloodstream that cause the body's ill effects. It doesn't matter how the glucose gets into the bloodstream so natural sugar, added sugar, carbohydrates, it's all about glucose in the blood
Since sugar is not a dietary requirement, it is not nutritionally necessary for human existence, we can have the debate about sugar addiction. There are many human diets that are completely sustainable that have no sugar, carbohydrates in them. So in the context of the sugar addiction debate, we need to evaluate that in terms of no carbohydrates versus a diet with carbohydrates.
Many people have great difficulty sustaining a diet with no carbohydrates for the first week. This is what I believe is referred to as sugar addiction.
With all discussions it's important that we agree on vocabulary, so I hope this clarifies the context at least in the journals referenced here. But I appreciate you are no added sugar position. From a no added sugar diet, sugar addiction doesn't exist, because there's enough base sugar in food anyway. Somebody could eat lots of rice, lots of fruits, and get their sugar fixed that way. Or even honey.
Then you're here to quibble about stupid bullshit that doesn't matter instead of whether sugar is as addictive as hard drugs or not, which is the actual topic of the thread.
Thanks for proving my point
The papers referenced put mice on a diet that doesn't have sugar, carbohydrates. And then they allow them to self-select between sugar, and other drugs. And they observe the behavior. That's where the sugar is as addictive as cocaine comes from.
Quibbling over casual vocabulary is pointless, it's the setup of the experiments that matters as far as the as addictive as cocaine metric matters
You could have simply said that instead of derailing the thread to talk about apples and it would have gone a lot more smoothly for you.
Your anger is misplaced. I did not make an analogy to apples at all. The person you are referencing is not me
For context, pinkdrunkenelephants said in a different comment, that they are "fat as a pile of pig shit" (direct quote) and consumes a lot of doughnuts and sugary drinks like coke.
That user is sugar addicted, and the reason why they are posting what they are is to justify their actions. Because if there is no sugar addiction, they cannot be an addict.
I feel for them. I've been there. I didn't know what to do. The good news is being in that mental state, and in that physical state, are both things that can be temporary.
The fact that they describe themselves so negatively tells me that they're unhappy with the situation. And I've been there too. Struggling, struggling, struggling, and then just saying I'm happy where I am but still being very negative about it. It's not a healthy place
But in this thread we've outlined the options for them, and if they want to change it they have the tools to do so and I hope they're either happy now, or have the tools to become happy in the future.
But I imagine in their original context, they are using the disparaging language to lend themselves credibility for saying it's a personal choice. And as a rhetorical method that might work, but as you gleened... It's just defensive armor.
When I was struggling with obesity, and my friends were having success by just cutting out Coke, I was genuinely jealous, and a little angry that it was working for them. That was a hard mix of emotions to process. I didn't take it out on them, but I could see the conflict in my own mind. So we all process this journey differently. I hold no grudges now
Personal anecdote: as someone who's gone through multiple rounds of keto and different artificially sweetened drinks. Drinks with no actual sugar are not addictive. I'm never compelled to pick up a Coke zero and drink it.
Normal cocoa sugar is addictive. I want more and more and more.
To your earlier point about different types of sugar yes and no. Fructose is converted in the liver two glucose in the bloodstream. It spikes the blood glucose levels quite high because it's converted rapidly. It's like super sugar. That's why fructose is very popular in drinks.
Normal table sugar, and carbohydrates, are converted into glucose in the bloodstream. At a slower rate.
The body has a physiological, and immediate response, to elevated blood glucose levels. It produces insulin to reduce those glucose levels.
The body can only store about 3 to 5 g of glucose in the blood, and the body has no capacity to store glucose anywhere else. There is some capacity for glucose to be absorbed by muscles, but it cannot be reintroduced into the bloodstream. That three to five grams of glucose will last the body about 3 hours. That's why people in a sugar diet get hungry every few hours. They're depleting their energy.
People who are keto adopted, whose body is not used to burning sugar, but instead burning ketones, which is a type of fat transport. They don't run out of energy every 3 hours, so they don't get consistently hungry.
Depending on what you mean, this could be considered the sugar addiction cycle. When your body runs out of energy for it's various processes it once more energy, and if your body is used to burning glucose instead of ketones, that means you want to eat more sugar every 3 or 4 hours. Snack culture if you will
I'm gonna assume you're here in good faith and I hope you don't prove that assumption wrong.
Don't get me wrong, I know all about the ins and outs of the biochemistry of the matter. I lost 20 pounds eating Mediterranean earlier in the year and it has been coming back because I went back to eating my favorite foods. It is 100% the added sugars in the processed food that put on weight for me, and I give not one single fuck, because I am honest enough to come out and say that I chose obesity because I simply wasn't happy restricting the foods I eat.
I eat what I want to eat and I just so happen to like donuts and Coke. And it's as simple as that, not just for me but for everyone else who lives this way. Eating junk food isn't an addiction, it's a lifestyle choice.
Much of our happiness in life comes from the food we eat and I simply wasn't happy drinking nothing but water and the occasional wine and swallowing down stale Pita bread. I just don't like that kind of food.
Some Mediterranean food (and I use the Mediterranean diet as my de jure example because that's what I did as opposed to keto) is good but nothing beats a Coke once in a while. And I am very particular about which kind of Coke I drink, because I don't drink it out of some addiction, I drink it for taste and because it is what I like.
And the sooner enabling assholes like the ones insinuating that eating sugar is akin to drug addiction shut the fuck up and stop muddying the waters so everyone else can be honest about the fact that they're the same way, the better off we'll be.
That's my perspective on the situation and I believe it is the correct one.
Cocaine is completely different than sugar in every conceivable way and I have NO fucking idea how the hell everyone got it in their heads that the two are comparable. They simply are not.
I'm glad you found a diet and lifestyle that works for you. Kudos. Genuinely
I take issue with your position that people talking about sugar addiction, and the difficulty of removing sugar from the diet for the average people, and especially the loved ones in our lives that were trying to save from medical conditions such as diabetes, are in the wrong for trying to help others. Sugar addiction is a very real thing. Simply because we have people in our lives who are being killed by sugar, type 2 diabetes is a great example, who have difficulty modifying their diet to live longer healthier more fulfilling lives. So however you want to address that vocabulary, there needs to be a discussion there, because it is a serious global metabolic epidemic. If you would like to give us the right vocabulary so that we can speak about it with you please I will use your vocabulary. But we need to have that discussion, and to tell other people that can't have that discussion because it makes you feel bad, is insufficient
It's wrong to deny obese people agency or to stop others from holding them responsible for their choices and the consequences.
That's exactly what does NOT help people.
What does help people is openly saying they are the ones making the choice about their own bodies and, most importantly, respecting the fact that they're making that choice instead of infantilizing obese people by labeling them drug addicts.
The only way we lose the weight permanently is either a drastic lifestyle change usually spurred by tragedy or hormone altering drugs like Ozempic, which themselves become something obese people become dependent on.
And that is true because we choose to live this way.
Here's the right thing to say:
"I respect your choices and your right to live as you please."
And that's all. Stop talking about it and accept them as they are, and stop trying to manipulate other people by equating us with drug addicts.
It's not even anyone's business whether someone is obese or not anyway so the whole discussion is moot.
I disagree with the assumption. I would say a heroin addict has the agency, they got addicted to heroin, and they have the agency to get off of heroin. We are sympathetic to their plight, and we can certainly try to help them, but the agency is their own. You cannot cure an addict who does not want to be cured.
So addiction, and agency or not diametrically opposed. You can have both.
Helping people understand the journey they need to take is a good thing. Giving them the tools on that journey is also a good thing. The foundational research to understand addiction, and the mechanisms that people have to overcome it are good things.
A lot of people live this way, not by choice, at least not by deliberate choice. But out of happenstance, because it's the food that's available, because it's the food that their social circle is eating, because it's normalized.
Lifestyle change is necessary for people who are suffering from insulin insensitivity, but I don't think it needs to be from tragedy or from external medication. It can come from understanding the mechanisms, and the nutrition.
One thing in your debating style I really like, is your philosophy of not assuming for other people, so we shouldn't assume how other people are going to approach their journey. We should give them options
And I am an obese person who is telling you your beliefs are not true, and to no surprise to anyone, here you are not listening and instead choosing to override my authority on the subject and you trying to impose your will on me to protect your cherished personal worldview in the face of the truth.
An enabler demonstrating for all of us this is only about you and your need to have someone to save to feel needed, to the extent you are denying fully grown adults the respect of their personal experiences and their own agency as human beings? Well, knock me over with a feather.
And it's not insulin insensitivity, it's insulin resistance, and you know what stops that? Choosing to cut out sugar. Know how I know that? Because diabetes runs in my family and that's exactly what I did earlier in the year.
You know how it is people do that? By being open and honest about their own choices and exercising their own agency, which you don't allow people to do because you wouldn't feel needed without invalids to care for.
And who cares if your behavior is making the problem worse? That's not a bug for you, that's a feature.
I disagree on your authority to speak for all obese people and that only obease people suffer from sugar addiction.
There are many non obese people with type 2 diabetes. The skinny fat population.
Your message is about perceptions and authority- emotions. This discussion is about biomedical physics. You don't have to agree with me, it's emperical. You can conduct the measurements yourself.
Insulin insensitivity and insulin resistance are synonyms.
I agree cutting out sugar solves insulin resistance, or at least lessons the impact of it, I disagree on your premise that sugar is only sugar and not carbohydrates which are trivially converted to sugar in the liver. The issue of this discussion, and the one we seem to be stuck on is addiction as a biological rather than mental thing. That's why we do the studies with mice. So we don't have to get into the feelings of what is biological or what shouldn't be biological. The mice react this way. That should tell us something about our own biology