The sweetness of sugar is powerfully alluring, and eating too much of it can lead to addiction and poor health.
Health Viewpoints
Eating too much sugar can be a slippery slope to various diseases—and even addiction. Although many endeavor to cut back or quit, it can sometimes be easier said than done. Not only is sugar an addictive substance, but it also is a ubiquitous ingredient. This added sugar is linked to chronic disease and biochemical changes in the body.
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 affects mood, sexual desire, sleep, and appetite; it can also calm nerves.
Regularly eating sugar causes one’s brain to become less sensitive to the effects of sugar. Then one needs to eat more sugar to achieve the same effect, and over time, one will generally eat more sugar.
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People who are naturally prone to anxiety or depression are particularly susceptible to sugar addiction. Eating sweets can make them feel happy or seem to relieve tension and anxiety, which can lead to an addiction. To these people, sugar is a form of self-medication, which makes it more difficult to eat 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 soar and dip. Sugar is the body’s primary source of energy. Carbohydrates break down into sugar, and many different foods contain many different kinds of sugar, which then enters the blood.
For sugar 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 blood sugar into the cells. Therefore, when one eats a lot of sugar—especially added sugars—the body has to secrete additional insulin to maintain blood sugar balance. Without insulin, the sugar stays in the blood, where it can rise to levels that can be fatal or lead to disease.
When one regularly eats substantial amounts of sugar, the cells can become less and less sensitive to insulin. It’s like if you repeatedly ask someone to move heavy things for you; they will eventually become tired and refuse to do it. In this case, it’s the insulin asking the cells to take up blood sugar. When they refuse, the body has to excrete more insulin to make them do the job. This is called
insulin resistance.
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The result of this resistance is that no matter how much sugar one eats, the cells will not use it and blood sugar will not drop. This is easily uncovered by a physical check-up that reveals high blood sugar and high insulin, an indication that insulin isn’t having the effect it should.
If the situation continues to worsen, the insulin-producing cells may also get tired from creating all that insulin and begin to produce less and less. 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 just different 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. They are then converted into triglycerides and stored there.
If one eats a lot of sugar and it has nowhere to go, it will go to the liver and create what we call nonalcoholic fatty liver. The best way to reverse fatty liver is to give up added sugar and reduce carbohydrates.
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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 isn’t an easy task.
Our behavior is influenced by our subconscious, which is related to our emotional and physical experiences in the past. Our intentions aren’t always compatible with our ingrained physical and mental behaviors.
People who like to eat a lot of added sugar aren’t only psychologically dependent on sugar but also physically dependent on it. If they don’t eat sugar for a while, they may suffer from headaches, constipation, diarrhea, bloating, general lack of energy, depression, anxiety, and other symptoms. If these people try to quit sugar, they may abandon it halfway. For these difficult cases, quitting sugar requires a more strategic approach.
How Do We Quit Sugar Properly?
1. Try to overcome the underlying psychological issues. You have to figure out why you are addicted to sugar and what prompted you to get into the habit of eating sugar. For some people, eating sugary treats is a way to self-soothe after a stressful day, or a way to tame depressive feelings. Figuring out the roots of this behavior may require a little professional help.2. Second, proceed step by step. We can gradually reduce sugar intake, starting with pure sugar and added sugar, so as not to cause too much resistance in the body. For example, while shopping, you should pay special attention to the added sugar content in the food you buy.
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3. Drink plenty of water. Sometimes people are actually thirsty but feel like eating sugar instead. Therefore, staying hydrated may help people overcome sugar cravings.
4. Reduce the consumption of sugary snacks. Plan and manage your snack intake, especially slowly replacing high-sugar snacks with those low in sugar.
5. Keep your body active. Exercise is the most effective and quickest way to combat insulin resistance. A
randomized clinical trial found that participants who performed aerobic exercise over eight weeks experienced significant reductions in blood glucose, insulin concentrations, and insulin resistance compared with the control group.
6. Manage your emotions well. Bad moods can activate a comfort craving for sugary foods. In addition, in a
research review published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews in 2019, researchers emphasized that there is plentiful evidence to suggest that an excessive intake of sugar can change the part of the brain responsible for processing emotions, cognition, and memory and lead to mood disorders such as depression, anxiety, and fear.
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We can try to regulate our emotions and relieve stress in many ways, such as by improving our view of the world, improving our expectations of the people around us, focusing on things we can control now, meditating regularly, and generally relaxing.
Overall, eating sugar can bring energy to the body and bring about happy feelings psychologically, but this pleasure is short-lived. Eating sugar frequently or eating too much sugar may lead to dependence. This dependence may lead to consequences such as diabetes, fatty liver, obesity, and depression. I hope this article will help you control your sugar intake and protect your health.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here. 
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