Written By Ashley Fortier
It goes by many names: muscovato, succanat, turbinado, maltodextrin… and any-ose you can think of. Children and adults celebrate almost exclusively by consuming it. Every nutrition label seems to have it listed among the ingredients on their package… but what is sugar really?
We all know it’s addictive. What most people don’t know is that sugar can be as addictive as cocaine or heroin, and maybe even more due to its prevalence in our society. Children consume large amounts of it, flooding reward centers and leading to intense cravings that last long into adulthood. But why is this simple molecule so addictive?
Glucose by nature was not as accessible to our ancestors. The only way to consume it was through the breakdown of cellulose or starches being converted into glucose by our bodies. Berries and fruits that are high in natural sugars were fewer and farther to come by. This limited the intake of sugar for every human up until recent history. It was a rare and convenient boost of energy that people who foraged could consume fruits or carbs when most of the human diet consisted of eating meat and vegetables.
Sugar also acts as an painkiller, calming our body's response to pain and stress by stimulating the body to release its own internal opioids, called endogenous opioids. Sugar is not an opioid itself. According to Catherine Shanahan M.D., the downside of this reaction to sugar is that when we overstimulate our natural responses, the baseline response we have in our bodies is reduced. This lowers people's cognitive ability to handle stress and is why our brains react so heavily to it causing widespread addiction.
In America particularly, sugar has become one of the hardest things to avoid. This isn’t an accident. According to research done by Catherine Shanahan in her book Deep Nutrition “Since the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has promoted nonstop the consumption of sugar for everyone, recommending 60 percent of our daily calories come from carbohydrate-rich foods.” A carbohydrate, in simple terms, is a starch or sugar that we consume. It’s a storage molecule that is broken down into glucose for energy. Being a storage molecule, many people tend to carry it around as excess fat on their bodies causing the widespread obesity America faces today.
With obesity comes an uptick in many obesity-related diseases. Heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are just a few examples. But how does this delicious additive work to gunk up our bodies in such a profound way?
Sugar is sticky. Its whole deal is to create easily breakable bonds in our body. If we then have excess sugar and don’t let our body recover by cleaning up and breaking these bonds…they become permanent. You get stubborn fat that won’t come off, hardening of artery walls, an easy source of fuel for growing cancer cells, and too much of a problem for our natural hormones, like insulin, to take effect. Hormones control all the processes in our body so you can see why this excess consumption can have a huge systemic effect.
So what can we do?
Eliminating sugar consumption should be a top priority in all at-risk populations. People predisposed to disease should diligently avoid sugar. This means reading package labels and getting picky. If that sounds like too much work, a good rule of thumb is that there is no sugar in meat and vegetables, and most cheese products contain less than 1g of carbs. This is the plot for most of the successful diets like the Atkins Diet, Keto, and Paleo Diets. It is recommended to limit carb intake to under 50g daily in order to achieve ketosis. Ketosis is a process that starts using up all the stored fat in your body due to a lack of readily available sugar.
Just like all drastic changes to diet or exercise, you should first consult with your healthcare provider to see if these changes are safe for you.