This is a wonderful site to check in with, and get notices from: http://www.sugarscience.org
This site is staffed by several doctors of one type or another, all interested in working to help get us off the dangerous drug that is Sugar.
I hope you enjoy this post which you can see in full at:
http://www.goop.com/journal/do/103/overcoming-sugar-addiction
What we should know about sugar
from Dr. Frank Lipman
As a serious sugar addict still struggling with my “addiction” I know first hand how difficult it is to get off sugar, and to stay off it. Part of the reason it’s so hard to kick the habit is that over time our brains actually become addicted to the natural opioids that are triggered by sugar consumption. Much like the classic drugs of abuse such as cocaine, alcohol and nicotine, a diet loaded with sugar can generate excessive reward signals in the brain which can override one’s self-control and lead to addiction.
One study out of France, presented at the 2007 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, showed that when rats (who metabolize sugar much like we do) were given the choice between water sweetened with saccharin and intravenous cocaine, 94% chose the saccharin water. When the water was sweetened with sucrose (sugar), the same preference was observed—the rats overwhelmingly chose the sugar water. When the rats were offered larger doses of cocaine, it did not alter their preference for the saccharin or sugar water. Even rats addicted to cocaine, switched to sweetened water when given the choice. In other words, intense sweetness was more rewarding to the brain than cocaine.
The American Psychiatric Association defines addiction to include three stages: bingeing, withdrawal and craving. Until recently, the rats had only met two of the elements of addiction, bingeing and withdrawal. But recent experiments by Princeton University scientist, Professor Bart Hoebel, and his team showed craving and relapse as well. By showing that excess sugar led not only to bingeing and withdrawal, but to cravings for sweets as well, the final critical component of addiction fell into place and completed the picture of sugar as a highly addictive substance.
In stark contrast to this clinical assessment is the fact that, for most of us, “something sweet” is a symbol of love and nurturance. As infants, our first food is lactose, or milk sugar. Later on, well-intended parents (me included) reward children with sugary snacks, giving them a “treat,” turning a biochemically harmful substance into a comfort food. We become conditioned to need something sweet to feel complete or satisfied, and continue to self-medicate with sugar as adults, using it to temporarily boost our mood or energy. But as any addict knows, one quick fix soon leaves you looking for another—each hit of momentary satisfaction comes with a long-term price.
The bottom line is that sugar works the addiction and reward pathways in the brain in much the same way as many illegal drugs. And, like other drugs, it can destroy your health and lead to all sorts of ailments including heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, weight gain, and premature aging. Sugar is basically a socially acceptable, legal, recreational drug, with deadly consequences—and like with any drug addiction, you have to have a flexible but structured plan to beat it.
Frank Lipman MD, is the founder and director of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in NYC and the author of REVIVE; Stop Feeling Spent and Start Living Again (2009) (previously called SPENT) and TOTAL RENEWAL; 7 key steps to Resilience, Vitality and Long-Term Health (2003). He is the creator of Eleven Eleven Wellness, Guided Health Solutions, leading edge integrative health programs to help you feel better than ever.
What is an addiction? Merriam-Webster defines an addiction as follows:
noun \ə-ˈdik-shən, a-\
: a strong and harmful need to regularly have something (such as a drug) or do something (such as gamble)
: an unusually great interest in something or a need to do or have something
: the quality or state of being addicted
: compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal;broadly : persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful.
If you, like millions of others, find that sugar creates a persistent and undeniable need for more sugar, you are likely addicted. Both in the biological and psychological realms.
Sugar is a major part of our western food industry, our western food traditions, and it’s hard to avoid. But for many of us, any sugar leads to persistent cravings for more sugar, and therefore we are for all intents and purposes addicted
I have offered other blog posts about the problems of staying away from sugars, especially in regard to weight loss, but more important are the harmful affects of glycation that sugars cause at the cellular level.
There are many reasons to get control of sugar, but as we grow older we more than ever appreciate that part of what we think of as “natural” effects of aging, are in fact the results of decades of poor diet. Sugars and starches from grains, are the worst offenders. Dementia, Alzheimer’s, declining joint functions related to arthritis, bone loss, fuzzy thinking, wrinkling and thinning skin, and so forth.
If you find that it is next to impossible for you to stay away from sweets, then consider that abstaining is the best way. We can’t have just a little of these sugars/starches without the concomitant insulin reaction that we know as cravings. If you stall or struggle at weight loss, chances are high that the problems stem with what you are eating. Eating sugar or starchy foods creates a vicious cycle of cravings. The only way to stop an addiction is to actually STOP what causes it.
No one likes to think s/he can’t control a substance, but most people who are plagued by the addictive nature of cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, gambling, shopping, and sugar, among others, know that there is no such things as “a little.” To be free of any addictive substance or behavior means abstaining.
Yours in reality,
Nan aka Sugarbaby
While not common (some experts say it is not possible) it seems there are some people who are allergic to sugar, or have symptoms very like allergies to various forms of sugars. I know my mother was highly allergic to honey, which is also not all that common. Of course, many people are allergic to grains, especially gluten grains, which might appear to be an allergy to sugar, when the allergy is really the foundation the sugar may be laid upon.
As with many allergies, people often strangely crave the very thing that cause them problems. Why, no one seems to know. Here are a few studies I found relating to sugar allergies:
http://nancyappleton.com/allergies-disease/
http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/PedEndocrine/EatAsIfYouAreAllergicToSugar.pdf
http://mossig.net/sugar-allergy-symptoms-what-you-should-do-to-avoid-them/
http://www.mnn.com/health/allergies/photos/10-common-allergy-myths/allergic-to-sugar
Posted in allergies, cravings, sugar, sugar addiction, toxcity
Those of us who have struggled with sugar don’t need a study to tell us that there is something different about sugar than other foods. Dr. Yudkin in the 1970s showed the addictive properties of sugar, and was bold enough to say that had sugar been discovered now it would be a controlled substance. Below is a link to yet another study that lifts up the problem with over use of sugar. While some people can handle sugar and not allow it to become a dependency, just like there are people who can smoke and drink without becoming dependent, there are some people who find they cannot stay away from the powerful draw of sugar. What starts as some overeating can eventually lead to binges, so there is a progressive element to sugar addiction that’s also present in alcohol abuse.
No one likes to think they are addicted to anything, but for those of us who have found ourselves constantly craving more sugar-starchy food even though we have just eaten a big meal know that there is something we have ceased to be able to control when it comes to those highly refined carbohydrates.
Once we accept we can’t have a little and go our merry way, the healing begins. For me it is strict abstaining from sugars, most starches, and artificial sweeteners. Sugar was the only thing in my life I could not control, and while it may not be how I expected to find myself as I aged, at least now there is a plethora of information to support why we struggle with this substance, and why we need to avoid it long before we find ourselves under its control.
Yours in learning and acceptance,
Nan aka Sugarbaby
Here’s the link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=12055324&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
The goal was to determine whether withdrawal from sugar can cause signs of opioid dependence. Because palatable food stimulates neural systems that are implicated in drug addiction, it was hypothesized that intermittent, excessive sugar intake might create dependency, as indicated by withdrawal signs.
Male rats were food-deprived for 12 hours daily, including 4 hours in the early dark, and then offered highly palatable 25% glucose in addition to chow for the next 12 hours. Withdrawal was induced by naloxone or food deprivation. Withdrawal signs were measured by observation, ultrasonic recordings, elevated plus maze tests, and in vivo microdialysis.
Naloxone (20 mg/kg intraperitoneally) caused somatic signs, such as teeth chattering, forepaw tremor, and head shakes. Food deprivation for 24 hours caused spontaneous withdrawal signs, such as teeth chattering. Naloxone (3 mg/kg subcutaneously) caused reduced time on the exposed arm of an elevated plus maze, where again significant teeth chattering was recorded. The plus maze anxiety effect was replicated with four control groups for comparison. Accumbens microdialysis revealed that naloxone (10 and 20 mg/kg intraperitoneally) decreased extracellular dopamine (DA), while dose-dependently increasing acetylcholine (ACh). The naloxone-induced DA/ACh imbalance was replicated with 10% sucrose and 3 mg/kg naloxone subcutaneously.
Repeated, excessive intake of sugar created a state in which an opioid antagonist caused behavioral and neurochemical signs of opioid withdrawal. The indices of anxiety and DA/ACh imbalance were qualitatively similar to withdrawal from morphine or nicotine, suggesting that the rats had become sugar-dependent.
12055324
[PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]
Posted in behaviors, binges, cravings, sugar, sugar addiction
I would have said at one time that it was impossible I would lose my taste for sweets, but to my surprise, after the last few years of very low carb eating, my taste for sweet has vastly diminished. Last night I was out to dinner with friends, I didn’t give the bread basket a second thought, then a dessert sampler was ordered for the table by one of my friends. I would have declined dessert if we had ordered individually. But, my friends are not on my low sugar-starch diet, and I don’t make a big deal when out with others.
So this big dessert platter with four desserts was put in the middle of the table. At one time I would have dived in and had my fair share, but instead I nabbed the strawberry settled on some whipped cream, had one tiny bite each of two of the desserts, an apple tart and a sticky pudding, and had no desire for more, indeed it was a ‘ho-hum’ experience. I just had no desire for any more. At the time I was not thinking much about it, but when I got home I realized what a different experience I just had from the years when I had to have my very own dessert in order to enjoy the meal.
So, take heart if you are still struggling with avoiding sweets. By maintaining good habits at home–no sweets live here–and avoiding most situations that are personal triggers, like convenience stores were for me, then given enough time, months to a couple years, we do gradually lose our super-sweetened palates and find pleasure in much healthier options. I make pumpkin custards, almond flour cup cakes, mousses, etc., sweetened only with a little bit of liquid stevia, and enjoy such treats as much or more than the old heavy sugar desserts.
All the negative issues with weight, inflammation in the cells, brain fog, and other such bad reactions to sugars-starches-artificial sweeteners, are enough to keep me on the path of good health which for me is anti-sugar.
Even when you fall off the wagon, and we all have, in the early days especially, take heart–it will get easier.
When you no longer feel deprived, you no longer want what is bad for you. To get to that point requires both habit changes and a change of mindset, but the good news is that it can be done.
Yours in learning,
Nan aka Sugarbaby
Posted in behaviors, cravings, determination, eating out, sugar, sugar addiction, sweets, will power
Tagged deprivation, habits, health, sugaraholics
This article has some good insights about the problems with elevated blood sugar, which is sadly rampant these days.
Aging Well: Keeping Blood Sugar Low May Protect Memory
by Allison Aubrey, NPR
October 25, 2013
There’s a growing body of evidence linking elevated blood sugar to memory problems. For instance, earlier this year, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that higher glucose may be a risk factor for dementia, even among people without type 2 diabetes.
So the question is, at what point does the risk of cognitive decline set in?
Or in other words, should we be aware of creeping blood sugar, even before it gets to levels that doctors call pre-diabetes?
Well, researchers, writing this week in the journal Neurology, have some new data that suggest that even modest increases in blood sugar among people in their 50s, 60s and 70s can have a negative influence on memory.
The study included 141 healthy older people141 healthy older people141 healthy older people, all of whom had blood sugar in the normal range. All of the participants were given recall tests where they were read a list of 15 words and then asked to repeat back as many as they could remember.
The researchers found that if a person’s hemoglobin A1C (the AIC test is a common blood test that reflects a person’s average blood sugar level over a two-to-three month period) went from 5 percent, which is in the normal range, up to 5.6 percent, which is edging closer to what doctors classify as pre-diabetes, this was associated with recalling fewer words.
This association suggests the effect isn’t huge. But researchers says it’s significant.
So, what’s actually happening in the brain when blood sugar levels are chronically elevated?
Study author Agnes Floel of Charite University Medicine in Berlin says there may be a couple of things at play. It’s possible that blood vessel effects can damage memory. “Elevated blood sugar levels damage small and large vessels in the brain, leading to decreased blood and nutrient flow to brain cells,” explains Floel.
Another explanation: Elevated blood sugar “may impair the functioning of brain areas like the hippocampus, a structure particularly relevant for memory,” Floel says.
“When you’re making a decision or trying to retrieve [information from your memory], the hippocampus requires a lot of glucose,” explains Gail Musen of the Joslin Diabetes Center.
But when glucose levels rise in the body, it may lead to a disruption in the transport of glucose through the blood-brain barrier to the hippocampus. And this may impact the integrity of the hippocampus, according to the findings of the new study.
So it seems that when blood sugar in the body rises, it may be “more difficult to get that glucose to the hippocampus,” Musen explains.
We should point out that it’s possible for blood sugar to go dangerously low, a condition known ashypoglycemia. This is most commonly an issue for people being treated for diabetes with insulin.
So, what can we do to help control blood sugar and keep it in the healthy range?
What we eat is important. “Consuming a diet rich in fiber, vegetables, fruit, fish, and whole-grain products” is recommended, Floel wrote to us in an email.
And there’s exercise too: “Exercising regularly is absolutely associated with lower blood sugars, on average, and it’s also associated with brain health,” says Paul Crane of the University of Washington.
Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/features/npr.php?id=240784956
Posted in blood glucose, blood sugar, diet, health, sugar, toxcity
Tagged blood sugar, diabetes, health, studies
Traveling and Avoiding Sugar Pitfalls
Sometimes I could travel and do fine, but other times I would cave and then slide into a binge. Struggling to stay free of binges I examined what places I was most vulnerable, and in those places, what foods tended to be the the ones that started the ball rolling.
Here is an interesting fact about human behavior: we are creatures of habit. We tend to repeat the same behaviors which is why it can be hard to break bad or negatives patterns. But the good thing about this slavish trait is that we can use that knowledge about ourselves to break through the negative.
A couple years ago I read a book on habits by Charles Duhigg, called The Power of Habit, in which he layouts out the powerful nature of habits, why that is good, and why it is a challenge for us to change habits. The short version is there are three basic parts to a habit: 1) a stimulus or cue, 2) to which we respond, 3)to produce the reward or goal. The key to changing a habit is not denial or will power, but taking advantage of the first and third elements, changing only the response. So, if every evening you have an alcoholic drink (response) while watching television (the stimulus), which is relaxing( the reward); you replace the alcoholic drink with another rewarding drink, perhaps a cup of herbal tea you enjoy. Soon the idea for the drink is for the tea, not the booze.
I realized that when I visited a family member’s house where I tended to give in to sweets, the most usual or initial food I was tripped up on was chocolate. Next time I visited I stopped at a market before going to the house and bought some of my favorite cheese and cold cuts. Now I had something to respond to the cue.
I further realized that chocolate was almost always what tripped me up because I can do some chocolate at home, very dark 85% chocolate to which I add some sliced almonds or coconut, and don’t over eat. Away from home the chocolate had a lot of sugar, and that I cannot or will ever be equipped to handle.
Now it will probably take more than one time to make the shift, but if you are determined, you can do it.
Yours in changing unhealthy habits,
Nan aka Sugarbaby
Posted in binges, cravings, determination, eating out, sugar, sugar addiction, sweets, Travel
The deep brain desire for sugar does not ever entirely go away, though it can be, as it were, caged by denial of sugar-starch-artificial sweeteners. I am a writer who likes analogy, to have concrete mental images of those more abstract issues. For me, the Clash of the Titans movie, the first one I saw in 1981, had the beast, the Kraken, caged deep in the ocean by Poseidon who controlled it. This was very powerful imagery; as indeed all the Greek mythological gods and creatures were meant to be.
As I struggled with a growing problem of cravings for carbohydrates, those urges/cravings were to me like the Kraken; if I could keep the beast caged, then I would be fine. Admittedly, it took me a while to figure out how to permanently lock the beast deep in my limbic brain. For me that is complete abstinence from modern sugars-starches, and all artificial sweeteners save a small amount of stevia.
Like the mythological Kraken, this is no beast to toy with; either it is caged, or it is running rampant over the landscape of my brain. For me it is extremely destructive on several levels, not the least of which is weight gain. Indeed, many people suffer from mental health issues that seem to miraculously go away once they go on a ketogenic or very low carbohydrate paleo-type food plan.
So, if you are also in the throes of the Kraken, be assured you, too, can cage the beast; but, beware, open the cage a little and it will come roaring to the surface once again, more powerful than ever.
Yours in being in control,
Nan aka Sugarbaby
Everything you want to know about the various types of sugar and sweeteners. You will want to bookmark this resource.
Sugaraholics 