The Dangers of Sugar: Why Some Experts Compare It to Cigarettes

Eating foods and drinks that contain a lot of sugar increases the amount of energy we get from our diet. The number of calories increases with the increase in sugar in the diet.

Consumption of sugars increases the risk of overweight and obesity, which leads to an increase in heart disease, strokes and some types of cancer, as well as diabetes.

Sugar stimulates taste buds connected to brain centers associated with reward. While brain scanning studies show that consuming a lot of sugar often leads to neurochemical changes in the part of the brain that is responsible for feeling reward.

Sugar is added or found naturally in many beverages, including sodas, energy drinks, and natural or artificial fruit juices.

The US Food and Drug Administration recommends that adults consume no more than 50 grams of added sugar per day (based on a 2,000-calorie diet).

Mark Hyman, a practicing family physician, and Ron Gutman, an assistant professor at Stanford University, wrote an article in the American Time magazine on May 1. They say it’s time to treat sugar like cigarettes.

The authors noted that 74% of canned foods in the United States contain added sugar, including seemingly healthy foods such as salad dressing, baked beans, pickles, and yogurt .

Addiction

They said the fact that sugar is biologically addictive makes hiding it in some foods even more harmful. According to the authors, studies show that sugar is 8 times more addictive than cocaine. They said that most of us are addicted to sugar without knowing it.

This cycle of addiction is unstoppable and hard to break: we eat food that contains sugar, which then causes our blood sugar to spike, which engages the pleasure center in our brain. When the inevitable sugar low comes, we seek the high again in the form of cravings for more sugar.

Without easily identifiable food labels, consumers unknowingly create this cycle within their bodies, even when they mistakenly believe that the food they buy is healthy.

In many countries, labels on packaged foods perform a similar function to the labels on cigarette packs: to warn consumers about the dangers of consuming them. In Chile, the policy of labeling sugary drinks has significantly reduced the consumption of sugary drinks.

So it may be time to put labels on products containing sugar, such as products warning that smoking causes cancer and heart attacks, which will help reduce sugar consumption and protect human health.