Sugar 'is the new crack cocaine': Doctor warns growing addiction to the sweet stuff is 'as dangerous as drugs and alcohol'

Daily Mail: One of the most common modern day dependencies is our growing addiction to sugar. We hear a lot about addiction to caffeine, sleeping pills and alcohol. Can we really add sugar to that list?  According to an increasing number of ‘sugar experts’ the answer is yes. Studies in mice have clearly shown that sugar is addictive.

By manipulating their diet to include more or less sugar, or to produce a sugar withdrawal effect, scientists can produce similar behaviour to true drug addiction. What’s more, in a study by French scientists, rats chose sugar over cocaine - even when they were addicted to cocaine. Not surprisingly, in humans such studies are a bit more difficult to do.  However, research using brain scans found that drinking sugary milkshakes triggered the same ‘reward centre’. What’s more, increasing the amount of fat in the milkshake didn’t really affect it – sugar was the culprit.

And as with any potentially addictive substance, the more we consume, the more our reward receptors get numbed to it – so we look for even more to re-create that ‘high’...read more>>>...