Nutritionists (unlike dieticians) have known, warned, and written about the addiction and affliction of sugar for over 8 decades. The most notable early premier classic on this topic was Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, by Dr. Weston A. Price, DDS, Keats Publishers, 1939. It was updated in 2009 with the 8th edition by the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation. The harmful effects of sugar, as documented in Dr. Price’s decades-long research and photos, are indisputable. Another classic book is Sugar Blues, by William Duffy, Warner Books, 1986. Duffy was the nutritionist for Hollywood’s Gloria Swanson.
In 1988, I wrote about sugar’s harm in Let’s Live magazine (as Carla Cassata, NC, Nutrition Advisory Board Member), in my article Sweets Are Not Treats. In 2017, I expanded on this in Masters of Health Magazine with Sweet Treat Addiction-The Scourge of Sugar, and this 2025 version updates that article.
In 1996 and revised in 2008, award-winning author and nutritionist (of like mind) Ann Louise Gittleman, PhD, C.N.S., also wrote about it in Get The Sugar Out, Three Rivers Press, Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House.
Despite longstanding evidence from nutritionists, the mainstream media and the medical profession have long ignored sugar’s damage. However, with the current obesity crisis and the MAHA movement, the harmful impact of the scourge of sugar can no longer be hidden or dismissed.
In her 1998 book Potatoes Not Prozac, author Kathleen Des Maisons, PhD, outlined the concept of sugar addiction. She states that “Sugar acts like a drug in your body. In fact, it affects the very same brain chemicals that morphine, heroin, and amphetamines do.
In 2002, research at Princeton began showing the neurochemical effects of sugar, noting that sugar might serve as a gateway drug for other drugs.[4] The research group fed chow to rats as well as a 25% sugar solution similar to the sugar concentration in soft drinks. After one month, the rats became ‘dependent’ on the sugar solution, ate less chow, and increased their intake of the sugary drink to 200%.[5]
Researchers say that sugar and the taste of sweet are said to stimulate the brain by activating beta endorphin receptor sites, the same chemicals activated in the brain by the ingestion of heroin and morphine.[6]
In 2003, a report commissioned by two U.N. World Health Organization agencies and the Food and Agriculture Organization was compiled by a panel of 30 international experts. It recommended that sugar not account for more than 10% of a person's diet.[7] However, in their effort to promote sugar, the U.S. Sugar Association asserted that other evidence indicates that a quarter of our food and drink intake can safely consist of sugar. Just like the tobacco industry, they continue to deny the damage from their addictive product(s) and persist in trying to convince everyone that sugar is safe. Yet, more and more independent scientific studies are revealing quite the opposite. To see the effects of sugar, simply observe the body and brain of a child or adult consuming 25% of their diet in sugar! It is not a healthy sight.
Prior to RFK Jr.’s recent appointment as Secretary of HHS, the American government did nothing to address the cause of the obesity epidemic, chronic diseases, or soaring mental illness, other than throwing more money at drugging/medicating our children.
In 2008, a study published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Vol. 32, Issue 1, by Nicole M. Avena, Pedro Rada, Bartley G. Hoebel, noted that sugar affects opioids and dopamine in the brain, and thus, might be expected to have addictive potential.
SUGAR CONSUMPTION
On average, Australians consume approximately 45 kg/99 lbs of sugar every year. New Zealanders consume about 50.37kg/110 lbs of sugar per year, and Americans consume about 45.5 kg/100 lbs per year. As any lover of sweets knows, sugar is very addictive.
Industry-influenced dieticians and food manufacturers, promoting these so-called “fun” foods, also known as “junk” foods, claim that they provide energy as justification. However, this temporary fix, as many studies have shown, soon leads to depleted adrenal and pancreatic function, obesity, and sugar addiction. Children and teens on a poor diet are most affected by this damage and suffer from chronic diseases.
Sadly, teens affected by this condition become more susceptible to drug addiction because drugs (including tobacco and caffeine) give them a desperately needed, temporary lift. Eventually, as more nutrients are depleted, the hypoglycemic condition worsens. Eventually, drug addiction develops among these victims, which can lead to depression, mental illness, and even suicide or death from an overdose. Hence, parents should think twice before addicting their children to sweets as treats, and schools need to stop serving and selling addictive, junk foods to our children. In fact, feeding highly sugared, addictive junk foods to children is nothing less than child abuse!
FOOD
Food is defined as a substance that provides energy and nourishment, promotes growth, and sustains life. If a substance, such as refined sugar or other refined carbohydrates, is void of any nutrients and fiber, it does not nourish the body, contribute to or promote growth, or sustain life. Thus, it should NOT be classified as a food, but rather a drug or pollutant.
MEDIA
On 8 June 2012, Australia’s Sixty Minutes TV segment called Sweet Poison revealed the addictive kick that sugar gives the brain.
Dr. Eric Stice, at the University of Oregon, and Allison Langdon discovered that this sweet poison, known as sugar, is as addictive as the hardest of illicit drugs.
ALLISON LANGDON: As I sip Coca-Cola from a specially wired tube, Dr. Stice and his team measure changes in my brain activity. That’s really sweet. Incredibly, my pleasure receptors respond in much the same way as if I’d taken illicit drugs.
ERIC: What this illustrates nicely is that it activates the same reward circuitry that is activated when people do drugs of abuse, cocaine, or marijuana, or something like that.
ALLISON LANGDON: So sugar has the same effect on my brain as cocaine and other illegal drugs?
ERIC: Yep.
ALLISON LANGDON: And Dr. Stice has found sugar can be just as addictive. Once in the vicious cycle of eating too much of it, our brains become programmed to crave more and more.
ERIC: The more you consume sugar, the less rewards you get from sugar, and the more you escalate your sugar intake.
ALLISON LANGDON: Does it sit comfortably with you saying sugar is worse than cocaine?
ERIC: In terms of morbidity and mortality, sugar kills way more people than any psychoactive drug.
ALLISON LANGDON: But for some, kicking the sugar habit can be as hard as conquering a serious drug addiction.