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Sugar addiction is something that won’t get you imprisoned or ending up in an inpatient rehabilitation center. Many people make light of their predilection for tasty, sweet treats. Sure, they taste good, but so do many other food items which don’t seem to invoke such a continual, compulsive need to consume them. So, why is it that many people are so hooked on baked sweet cookies and other sugary foods?

How Sugar Affects Your Eating Behavior

Dr. Louis Aronne, a director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center in New York said that eating sugar is much like ingesting cocaine. People who habitually have a high consumption of sweets were found to have a very strong urge to consume these foods and gained elevated moods while and immediately after eating them.

However, when they are deprived of these sugary foods they can experience very strong negative responses consistent with withdrawal symptoms. Dr. Aronne also said that if a person consumes sugary foods in the morning they will set up a bad pattern for the whole day. As they come down off their initial sugar high they will tend to unconsciously crave more sugar based food throughout the day.

Sugar Stimulates Your Brain Like Cocaine Does

A research led by a neuroscientist named Joseph Schroeder of Connecticut College showed that sugary foods stimulate a person’s brain exactly the same way that drugs such as morphine and cocaine do. This helps explain why so many people find it hard to resist foods that are loaded with sugar even if they are aware of its adverse effects on health. This finding is part of research that hopes to find out more regarding the link between food motivations and human behavior.

They chose Oreos in the said study not just because these cookies are highly palatable to humans and laboratory rats but also because they have been heavily marketed in so many countries that are considered to have lower socioeconomic statuses.

Sugar as An Addictive Substance

A study of the highly addictive quality of high fructose corn syrup was led by Dr. Francesco Leri of University of Guelp Ontario, Canada. This study showed that consumption of high fructose corn syrup can cause behavioral reactions among laboratory rats which are similar to the effects of using addictive drugs.

In the same study researchers showed that laboratory animals and humans have the same kind of vulnerability when it comes to developing a preference for high-sugar foods and for any other addictive substance. Dr Leri said that this finding explains why people’s addiction to unhealthy foods has led to a global obesity epidemic. David Kessler, who used to be the head of Food and Drug Administration, stated that sugar and cigarettes share the same addictive effect.

These products both contain substances that are highly pleasurable but will only provide momentary bliss. The effects of substances, including sugar, that provide a highly hedonic effect are so strong that they dominate thinking about immediate consumption.

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How Sugar Affects Dopamine Production

Another study also showed that rats were found to ingest sugar in a manner that is similar to a human bingeing on sweet foods. This sugar binge stimulated the brain to produce dopamine before and after sugar consumption and the effect was said to be similar to individuals taking heroin.

In Summary

Experts also confirmed that high consumption of sugary foods can lead to changes in the level of production as well as availability of dopamine in the brain’s receptors. This means that for a person to experience that same feeling of “high”, they would need to consume more sugar or more drugs the next time around.