Sugar Addiction Debate

snowflake954 wrote: »

ghrmj wrote: »

snowflake954 wrote: »

neanderthin wrote: »

/q

snowflake954 wrote: »

neanderthin wrote: »

snowflake954 wrote: »

neanderthin wrote: »

snowflake954 wrote: »

sollyn23l2 wrote: »

People use language to convey their experience. If I say "I really enjoy food", you'll have one understanding of what that means. If I say "I'm addicted to food" then you have a different, perhap more accurate, understanding of my experience. Using the term addicted generally intimates that the individual is unable to moderate their use of that particular thing. And yes, being addicted to sugar is a very real experience. And nobody should deny the op her experience. If she feels addicted to sugar, then she feels addicted to sugar. All of your guy's semantics are useless and devaluing the op's experience, whether you like what she said or not.

I can never understand this problem. You'd think people would be overjoyed to learn that they are not "addicted" to something. The thing I've always liked about MFP is that it has the courage to correct misinformation.

Well, I'm sure as the word gets out to all the people that feel addicted and now find out they aren't, and it's all in their heads, they'll be very grateful. lol Cheers

Ha! Talking about sugar, to be clear. You have to admit there is a certain drama to "I am addicted to sugar" rather than "I tend to overeat sweets".

Well, if those 2 statements are the only 2 realities, then yes, what remains would be "certain drama". The 1st reality is a person feels hopelessly a slave to a sweet taste while the second reality would dictate that they could take it or leave it.

Here's another reality. When we consume sugar it travels down the limbic system to our brain which also controls neurochemical messaging but also has an effect on our behavior and when someone has a problem with sugar, brain scans show that the same pathways that cocaine and other drugs use and produce similar events, and studies show that sugar not only can replace the "hit" people get from drugs but that it even has a greater initial "hit" effect.

Basically it's a nuanced conversation that normally gets squashed with the conventional bias or beliefs because sugar isn't a substance that in the strictest definition, is not addicting.

OK. Because I always respect your posts, what do you think should be done differently with someone who has a sugar addiction verses someone who tends to overeat and is very over weight and needs to lose?

How would the approach differ? Can a sugar addiction be cured? Or, is it abstinence forever?

Well, first off, I have my own biases so I will, as I generally do, try and keep that out of this conversation, but suspect some of that will creep in.

The problem with overeating and obesity is, it's multifaceted so there isn't a blanket recommendation that will fit all circumstances, and some may have nothing to do with sugar "addiction". But sugar does loom large in this demographic, no doubt about it.

The road I've lately been going down thinking about this is to try and find a root cause as opposed to trying to find ways to finger *kitten* it and tell people to take responsibility to eat less and move more, because as we know, that been a total failure and actually the numbers only go higher.

Without getting into the weeds and sighting literature I believe if we focused more on our fasting insulin sensitivity as opposed to blood sugar that medical advice would have been more focused at a much earlier age, at childhood for example as opposed to 2, 3 or 4 decades later where insulin resistance started to steadily increase and with dietary habits well entrenched by then which makes it very difficult for change and generally evolving into diabetes and of course diabetes is prevelant in the obese population along with many other health issues.

If we took fasting insulin levels from the get go it would have become very clear that higher levels of insulin in the blood were the result from the consumption of a diet with a higher percentage coming from ultra processed and to a lesser degree processed foods. Basically, a chronically elevated level of insulin ensures blood sugars are kept low but over time the pancreas just can't continue to pump out insulin at that elevated rate indefinitely. What happens is blood sugars creep up because insulin can't keep up. Basically the Y asis of blood sugar that held steady for many years starts to go up while the X axis of insulin begins to go down and worst case scenario is people with diabetes are given insulin injections after yrs on metformin because of this simple fact so yeah, finding the root cause is paramount imo.

Anyway sugar lol. I think we all have a pretty good idea that consuming large amounts, which the US population does of ultra and processed foods that it's not good for our health. Anyway the early fasting insulin blood testing would have put these foods directly at the bullseye and possibly the advice to remove and go to a more whole food diet when we were still kids might have changed to some degree what people eat, or at least I'm believing that would have had some influence. Would this have affected how many people have a problem with sugar now, I'm betting it would have. Kinda late though.

Saying all that, a more of a whole food diet and a low carb diet for people that have a sugar "addiction" would be my recommendations. Keep in mind that people that have no problem managing their energy balance and are of normal weight this hypothesis is not applicable, even though I would suggest getting fasting insulin testing going forward. Losing weight and being close to a normal BMI with a regularly monitored normal energy balance is a good place to be, obviously.

See I didn't get into too many weeds lol. Cheers

Anyway--back to my question. A whole food, low carb diet would be your recommendation for a "sugar addict" to lose weight. But then what recommendation would you give a very over weight person, who is not addicted to sugar, and needs to lose? Would your approach be different and why?

This is never addressed in the debates on sugar addiction.

This wasn't addressed to me but, imo, the difference would be whether the person can include certain foods in moderation, or not. Some people are able to moderate, and even do better with compliance when they allow themselves a small amount of sugary "treats". It makes them feel satisfied.
I would say that the person who puts themselves in the addicted category would be triggered, rather than satisfied, by the same small sugary "treat". And it could lead to a feeling of loss of control, and perhaps a sugar binge.

Sorry that you became upset with my post saying "when one of the partners cannot control themselves around certain foods", but it was a general statement and not particularly aimed at you. I never said or thought that you were a glutton. I truly hope that you are able to lose the weight you want and that it makes you happy and healthy.

I quoted your above post because you were talking about a loss of control.

BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »

neanderthin wrote: »

Well, it certainly appears nonsense is open to interpretation.

It is, and that is precisely the reason that nonsense, superstition and quackery persist. One can almost never *prove* that something does not exist. One can only point out that there is no credible evidence for a quack claim.

Canadians should be aware of that, their government spent millions in studying "liberation therapy", a blatant quack therapy that shamelessly exploits/exploited the despair of very vulnerable patients, only to conclude that no evidence could be found in its favour. Was liberation therapy ever *disproved*? No. You can't. And that is also not scientist's task. It is up to the claimant to provide credible evidence for her/his claims, not the unbelievers and disbelievers to prove the claim is false.

Anyone claiming otherwise, can begin by *proving* that Santa Claus does not exist and anyone claiming otherwise would do well watching the US senate hearings of TV charlatan Dr. Oz where he had to admit that he was unable to provide evidence for his nonsensical claims. That is how science advances. It is how we know that Newton was right, but only up to a point. It is how we know that Einstein was right, but only up to a point, and it is how we know there is a lot more we don't know yet. And sometimes, but only sometimes, we can provide at least a test of sorts that would provide solid evidence that something is not true, such Einstein and the perihelium of mercury or Haldane and the rabbits in the Precambrian.

Sometimes, it is harder. The problem with bloodletting comes to mind. We have treated numberless humans with bloodletting, until someone made the effort of actually checking, and what was discovered? That bloodletting killed people, it did not cure them.

It is the misunderstanding of how evidence works that allows religions such as homœopathy and chiropractic to continue to exist: they exploit the impossibility to disprove them. It is how quacks can continue to claim that energy (calories) has nothing to do with weight gain...

This is not an unimportant besides-the-point sideshow. It is this lack of understanding that feeds much of the weight loss industry, the supplement industry and others that prey on people's lack of understanding. It is despicable, but unless legislation changes, there is preciously little we can do against it and it is very unlikely such legislation will come to fruition. I blame a misunderstanding of the freedom of religion for that, at least in part: the freedom to believe anything one wants to believe should not receive unreasonable protection by denying all citizens easy access to learning how critical thinking works.