Modified post. Read the edit at the buttom.

Now, call me crazy, I don’t think so! I have been an addict and I know how it is to be an addict, but I don’t think sugar is as addictive as cocaine. And I really am frustrated with people who say such things.

This notion that it’s as addictive drives me crazy! I mean, imagine someone gullible who says, well, “I can control my addiction to ice cream, heck I can go without ice cream for months, if it’s as addictive as cocaine, why not give cocaine a chance? It’s not like it’s gonna destroy me or something?” Yeah, I have once been this gullible (when I was younger) and I hate this.

I do crave sugar and I do occasionally (once per week and sometimes twice a month) buy sugary treats/lays packet (5 Indian Rupees, smallest one) to quench that craving, but I refuse to believe that it is as addictive as cocaine or any other drugs. PS: My last lays packet was 45 ago and I am fine, and this is the most addictive substance I have consumed.

I am pretty some people here have been addicted to cocaine (truly no judgement, I hope you are sober now), so what say you?

PS: If you haven’t been addicted to anything drastic as drugs, you are still welcome to chip in.

edit: thank you all for adding greater context.

I realize now that when they talk about sugar, they are not just talking abt lays and ice creams, but sugar in general. I get the studies now. But media is doing a terrible job of reporting on studies.

Also, the media depiction of scientific studies is really the worst. I mean, they make claims which garbage and/or incomplete data or publish articles on studies which make more alarming claims. Also, maybe wait for a consensus before you publish anything, i.e., don’t publish anything which isn’t peer reviewed and replicated multiple times. Yes, your readers might miss out on the latest and greatest, but it isn’t really helpful if the latest and greatest studies in science aren’t peer reviewed and backed up well by data.

I feel like a headline “SUGAR IS AS ADDICTIVE AS COCAINE” can and will be life destroying if you don’t give enough information. I feel like there should be an ethical responsibility to not sensationalize studies, maybe instead of “SUGAR IS AS ADDICTIVE AS COCAINE” give a headline like “Sugar and Addiction, what science says.”

also, https://i.imgur.com/VrBgrjA.png ss of bing chat gpt answering the question.

some articles: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/25/is-sugar-really-as-addictive-as-cocaine-scientists-row-over-effect-on-body-and-brain

https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/experts-is-sugar-addictive-drug

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/cravings/202209/is-sugar-addictive

https://brainmd.com/blog/what-do-sugar-and-cocaine-have-in-common/

  • funbreaker@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    238·
    1 year ago

    I think when people make those headlines they forget that sugar is essential to the human body. It’s a nutrient. As far as I know you don’t get a deficiency disorder if you don’t use cocaine ever.

    The problem is with the way our society is structured now: it’s hard to not rely on processed foods with tons of sugar and salt because most people don’t feel like they’d ever have to the time to prepare a healthy meal.

    • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
      184·
      1 year ago

      Sugar is not necessary for human existence. The body can synthesize sugar from fat in a process called gluconeogenesis in the liver. People can live 100% healthy lives without sugar or carbohydrates.

      • LogarithmicCamel@lemm.ee
        31·
        1 year ago

        Only very very little fat (the glycerol part) can be converted to glucose actually. The main source for gluconeogenesis is protein. And our bodies hate converting protein to glucose. You can guess why! This is why endurance athletes are constantly sipping on a sugary drink as they compete

        • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
          21·
          1 year ago

          https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/8/2896

          There have been some interesting studies on ketogenic endurance athletes, but TLDR They perfect just as well (after adoption) and have a larger capacity.

          I’m aware the liver can convert protein to glucose, but it also has other sources available to it. Do you know / or can you point me to / information on how the source is decided?

          The googling I’ve just been doing seemed to indicate lipid sources are more common in ruminants, but that feels like I’m just finding the wrong literature.

          • LogarithmicCamel@lemm.ee
            31·
            1 year ago

            They don’t compete or do hard workouts without consuming carbohydrates though. The anaerobic metabolism doesn’t run on fat no matter how much you train, and it brings a lot of extra energy. You simply can’t go as hard as you can without carbohydrate.

            Ruminants might be able to convert more fat to glucose, I don’t know about that, but humans can’t. Would be wonderful if we could, considering we can store almost infinite fat but only a meager amount of carbohydrate.

            Wikipedia explains it well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis

            I forgot to mention odd-chain fatty acids besides glycerol, but they also just give you half of a glucose molecule.

      • Peaty@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        1 year ago

        Academic source that proves humans can live healthy lives without carbs? Keep in mind no studies have been done on ketogenic diets in people with “normal” digestive systems that have spanned decades.

        I suspect you are going to have to dial that claim back a bit. At best right now it appears as if it might be possible for adults to avoid carbs but we have no idea what that looks like over the course of a full life nor is anyone going to run this test on kids.

        • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Great question: https://wellsrx.com/comparison-of-traditional-indigenous-diet-and-modern-industrial-diets-and-their-link-to-ascorbate-requirement-and-status

          The Inuit’s famously had a very high fat, high protein diet consisting mostly on captured sea creatures.

          The life of Stefansson Vilhjalmur is fascinating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhjalmur_Stefansson

          Stefansson documented the fact that the Inuit diet was then consisted about 90% meat and fish. Inuit would often go six to nine months a year eating nothing but fatty meat and fresh fish, which might currently be perceived as a ‘zero carb’ / no-carbohydrate diet. …Stefansson found that he and his fellow explorers of European, Black, and South Sea Islands descent were also “perfectly healthy” on such a diet.

          To combat erroneous conventional beliefs about diet, Stefansson and his fellow explorer Karsten Anderson agreed to undertake an official study to demonstrate that they could eat a 100% meat diet in a closely observed laboratory setting for the first several weeks. For the rest of an entire year, paid observers followed them to ensure dietary compliance.

          TLDR in one of the first observational society studies of a native ketogenic diet, the explorers reporting the findings embarked on a year long observed diet proving it worked outside of the native population. A really fascinating at one of the early rigorous approaches to dietary research.

          We can only rely on observational epidemiological studies of native populations which have low carb diets to make statements about “carbohydrates are not necessary for human life”… but I as the Inuit exist, throughout history, on a very low carb diet, it demonstrates that carbs and sugar are not necessary for human life

          • Peaty@sh.itjust.works
            2·
            1 year ago

            I asked for academic sources for a reason nakely because there is a ton of bullshit broscience surrounding keto. Do you have peer reviewed academic sources? Wikipedia and a pharmacy group’s blog aren’t peer reviewed academic sources.

            As an aside you might want to look into how much younger Inuits who ate a traditional diet died vs those that ate more plants. It doesn’t support keto as a healthy diet at all by comparison.

            • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
              01·
              1 year ago

              I’m sorry your dissatisfied with the sources I could find.

              What are you referring to by mortality rates in Intuit children? I’m not familiar with that study

              • Peaty@sh.itjust.works
                1·
                1 year ago

                That’s because they aren’t what I asked for though to be fair Im also aware those sources do not exist because we haven’t done those studies.

                The fact that the Inuit traditionally have a much shorter lifespan is a fairly well documented fact. It’s really hard living in the Arctic and it is extremely likely that you do need some plants to live a more normal life. You’ll note it’s never academics that bring them up as an example for how keto is “totes healthy” (again we don’t know if it is for decades on end).

      • waka@feddit.deEnglish
        75·
        1 year ago

        That is correct. Your Body mostly needs good protein sources (there’s no such thing as too much protein intake except if liver/kidney diseases exist already) since it can only reuse part of those in the body, not synthesize all necessary forms of it. Everything else (fat and carbohydrates) is purely energy. Sugar, starches and anything with sugar is just carbs to the body in different forms. The body can synthesize those as needed, whatever of both is deficient. Your body most likely runs a lot better on fat, according to anyone who tried.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          21·
          1 year ago

          there’s no such thing as too much protein intake except if liver/kidney diseases exist already

          Nope. “Rabbit poisoning” used to be a pretty common thing. Early north Americans whose main protein source was rabbit got too much protein and developed health issues.

          You also act like vegtables aren’t a thing…

                • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  1·
                  1 year ago

                  I never said it was…

                  I implied someone acting like a human can be healthy without eating vegetables doesn’t know what they’re talkng about…

                  And the person I replied to refusing to admit they’re wrong that there’s no such thing as too much protein means they’re likely getting their nutritional information from Joe Rogaine

          • waka@feddit.deEnglish
            21·
            1 year ago

            Vegetables do provide some nutrients and buffering, yet they’re not an absolutely necessary main source IF you have access to good quality meat, eggs, fish, etc. Those things have a very high micronutritiants-content, as long as they are of good quality.

            On Rabbit poisoning, looked it up. That is based on an absolutely purely protein-based diet with little to no intake of fat and carbs, as far as I understand that right now. I did not state that eating purely protein is okay, just that the body can make up for deficiencies in fat or carbs as needed. So eating nothing but chicken meat without any fat or carbs would likely cause rabbit poisoning symptoms as well. Which is, again, not what I stated.

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
              11·
              1 year ago

              I did not state that eating purely protein is okay

              You said:

              there’s no such thing as too much protein intake except if liver/kidney diseases exist already)

              Which is wrong.

              Really nothing you’re saying is based in science, but considering how this went, I don’t think explaining it all is going to be productive

          • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
            11·
            1 year ago

            So the fun thing is, if you reverse that ‘Academic peer reviewed source supporting the claim that your body runs optimally on carbohydrates’ is also missing. Nutritional research is massively lacking with “tradition” standing in for basic foundational science.

            https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1743-7075-1-2 Ketogenic diets and physical performance

            Basically the theory goes like this, bodies that are glucose adapted can only tap into the free glucose in the blood, which is like 3-5g, not very much. Bodies adapted to fat burning (ketosis) can tap into the entire stored fat reserve for performance. So long term endurance tasks win on ketosis. Glucose is great for burst activity (which is why cortisal/adrenalin cause the liver to produce glucose in the blood, to help with bursts)

    • KinNectar@kbin.run
      61·
      1 year ago

      @funbreaker

      Refined sucrose is not an essential nutrient, carbohydrates may be though even that is disputed these days the body refines glucose from any number of complex carbohydrates and even non-carb sources. In a natural environment sucrose would be consumed seasonally at a relatively low percentage of total calories when fruits were available, for much of the year sucrose would make up a very low percentage of calories consumed.