Though I have no formal training in addiction counseling, I have for years freely used the word “addiction” when talking to clients and others about the pervasiveness of sugar in the American diet. To be fair to myself, I will say that in graduate school and since, I have read studies indicating this is true: sugar is addictive to humans.
(By the way, white table sugar is really just one chemical- sucrose. So, by many, it is not technically considered a food, but rather a food extract or chemical isolate.)
The former head of the FDA, Dr. David Kessler, in his book, The End of Overeating ,describes a bit of the mechanism by which sugar triggers the reward section and actions of your brain and makes you want more and more of it. And, like other addictions, as your addiction progresses, it takes more and more sugar for you to get the same pleasure feelings (read: “high.”)
Rats that are addicted to cocaine will give it up when forced to choose between that and sugar.
Rats genetically prone to become obese will drink so much sugar syrup, when it is provided ad libidum, that they become so obese their feet no longer touch the floor.
The immense amount of sugar we consume (131.9 lbs per capita in the US in 2010) has massive health implications. Many have pointed out the connection between sugar consumption and overweight and obesity. It also leads to more inflammation in the body and is thus linked to all the major killer diseases in the US, including heart disease and cancer. And of course, it’s linked to the continuously increasing rate of diabetes. Even a NY Times article covered the powerful lecture by Dr. Robert Lustig in which the UCSF MD overtly describes sugar as a toxin and describes how, essentially, it is killing many people every year.
Though our astronomical sugar consumption is down from a high of 151.3 lbs per capita in 1999 (kudos!) it still amounts to more than 650 calories per American per day. In a typical 2,000 calorie/day diet (though many people eat fewer calories than this) that amounts to approximately a third of calories. What?? (To be fair, the amount of sugar per year is really a statistic of sugar delivered for food availability, and therefore must be higher than what is actually consumed because there is certainly some waste.) Nevertheless, that’s a lot!
Even in other parts of the world, that figure is much lower. In China, the average annual per capita sugar consumption is only about 12 lbs.
Keeping in mind that human history is thousands of years long, we can understand that for the lion’s share of our existence, the vast majority of human beings consumed no refined or condensed sweetener like sugar. Even as the middle ages brought better refining technologies to Europe, “sugar”- as a refined product of either sugar cane or sugar beet (and nowadays as a refined product of corn)– was still a highly valued, expensive commodity with limited availability and most humans had little or no exposure to it.
All of this means one thing– we are not wired (created, evolved- take your pick) to have this much sugar in our lives. This affects us in 2 major ways. The first is that, since we have a natural taste for sweets (largely believed by evolutionary biologists to be be based on the healthfulness and calorie density of fruit) we simply become addicted to refined sweetener. (Remember David Kessler.) The second main way this unprecedented availability of sugar affects us is that, since our metabolisms are not suited to handle it, we get fat and we get sick. (See above.)
Just one of the reasons I think this has persisted is because we have not, as a culture, acknowledged that sugar is such a great contributor to disease and such an addictive substance. In fact, it generally has happy psychological associations– birthdays, holidays, grandmothers… everyday life. It’s place in our society as something “normal” has made it more difficult for people to curb their consumption. It’s everywhere and it’s accepted. And most of us are very accustomed to it.
So, we’ll save the discussion of how to make lasting dietary changes, particularly changes in sugar consumption, for next time.
But for now, try and remember these 3 main points:
1. We consume more sugar than any group of humans in history. A lot more.
2. Sugar is addictive– eating more makes you want to eat even more.
3. Our level of sugar consumption (including high fructose corn syrup) is closely linked with serious negative health consequences, including connection to all the major diseases in the US.
Tags: diet, food, health and disease, nutrition, preventative health