Why Sugar Addiction Is Dangerous and 6 Tips to Ease Dependence

The sweetness of sugar is powerfully alluring, and eating too much of it can lead to addiction and poor health.Health ViewpointsEating too much sugar can be a slippery slope to various diseases—and even addiction. While many endeavor to cut back or quit it can sometimes be easier said than done. Not only is sugar an addictive substance, but it is a hidden ingredient in many of the foods we eat. Causes of Sugar Addiction Why does eating sugar lead to addiction? Once sugar enters the body, it triggers the secretion of two chemicals in the brain. One is dopamine, the secretion of which gives a pleasant feeling that one wants to repeat. The other is serotonin, which has an impact on mood, sexual desire, sleep, and appetite. Its secretion can calm the nerves and enhance the mood.Eating sugar regularly, causes your brain to become less sensitive to the activation effect of sugar to trigger chemical secretion. In that case, one needs to eat more sugar to achieve the same effect, and over time either voluntarily or involuntarily one will eat more sugar.People who are naturally prone to anxiety or depression are particularly susceptible to sugar addiction. Eating sweets can make them feel happy or seemingly relieve tension and anxiety, which can lead to an addiction. To these people, sugar is a form of self-medication and adds to the difficulty of eating less of it. Sugar Addiction Can Be Consequential If you develop a strong psychological and physical dependence on sugar, what are the likely consequences?First, sugar addiction causes blood sugar and insulin levels in the body to fluctuate and soar. Sugar is our body’s prime source of energy. For it to be effective, it has to enter the cells to supply the needed energy. To accomplish this task, the body needs to secrete insulin to transport sugar into the cells. Therefore, when you eat a lot of sugar, to send sugar into the cells, the body will be activated, sometimes quite hastily, to secrete additional insulin to maintain blood sugar balance. This is the reason why the more sugar you eat, the higher the spike in your blood sugar and insulin.When substantial amounts of sugar are eaten regularly, your cells can become less and less sensitive to insulin. For instance, if you repeatedly ask someone to move heavy things for you, they will eventually become tired and refuse to do it. The analogy in our case here is, that the same amount of insulin may not be able to bring sugar into the cells, a situation called insulin resistance.Related Stories11/18/202311/15/2023The result of this resistance is that no matter how much sugar you eat, your cells will not use it and your blood sugar will not drop. This is easily exemplified by a physical check-up, during which you see a strange phenomenon: high blood sugar and high insulin, an indication that the insulin no longer works.If the situation continues to worsen, the insulin-producing cells may also get tired, then go “on strike,” and no longer produce enough insulin. At this time, the blood sugar in the blood is very high, but the insulin level may drop, not because the insulin resistance has improved, but because the condition has become more serious and has become a stage of diabetes. In this regard, insulin resistance and diabetes are dissimilar stages of the same problem.The second consequence of sugar addiction is fatty liver. Some people think that fatty liver is caused by eating too much fat, but this is not the case. Fatty liver disease is caused when sugar, substantial amounts of starch, and other carbohydrates enter the liver without being used by the cells, are converted into triglycerides, and stored there. When you don't have a source of glucose, it is converted to glucose for energy.If you eat a lot of sugar and it has nowhere to go, it will go to the liver and create what we call non-alcoholic fatty liver. Therefore, the best way to reverse fatty liver is to give up sugar and carbohydrates altogether.The third consequence of sugar addiction is obesity. Excessive sugar will eventually turn into fat, even visceral fat. Visceral fat will continue to produce hormones that cause inflammation and stress in the body, which results in further obesity. Ways of Quitting Sugar Quitting sugar is not an easy task.Our behavior is influenced by our subconsciousness, which in turn is related to our emotional and physical experiences in the past. You could compare it to a New Year's resolution—only a few people can stick to it. This is because our thoughts are not always compatible with our physical and mental behavior.People who like to eat sugar are not only psychologically dependent on sugar but also physically. If they do not eat sugar for a while, they will suffer from headaches, constipation, diarrhea, bloating, general lack of energy, depression, anxiety, and other symptoms. So even if you make up your mind to quit sugar, you may abandon it halfway. How Do We Quit Sugar Properly? 1. Try to overcome the underlyin